


Hermione Granger and Other Ways to Destroy Hogwarts by Christmas

by Imprudence



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Eventual Romance, F/M, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Humor, Romance, Snager, the horcruxes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-01-17 05:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 47,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12358515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imprudence/pseuds/Imprudence
Summary: How would the Gryffindorian trio spend their seventh year at Hogwarts with the school full of Death Eaters and Severus Snape as the Headmaster?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Гермиона Грэйнджер и другие способы разрушить Хогвартс к Рождеству](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/329778) by Живоглот и Косолапсус. 



> According to the authors, this fanfiction was written for those who weren’t inspired by the epic with forests, tents and Deathly Hallows. I’d like to mention that thanks to this story I discovered the Snape/Granger pairing and have loved it dearly ever since. Published over 7 years ago, this work is one of the top five Russian Snager fanfictions. I hope you will like it and that my translation does it justice.

“WHAT, IN THE NAME OF SALAZAR, IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!!!”

The usual sarcastic notes disappeared from Severus Snape’s voice and he himself began to look like an over-boiling cauldron. It appeared that even his left eye started to twitch – an entirely bad omen.

“…NIGHT!” continued the professor, spitting out the words.

The Gryffindorian clenched his broom handle nervously.

“THE HEADMASTER’S OFFICE!”

The young man couldn’t help but glance at the door, opened just a minute ago by the owner of the said office.

“…THE BROKEN WINDOW!”

Yes, in Snape’s brief recap, this situation sounded pretty bleak indeed. The professor, in the meantime, triumphantly concluded his accusatory speech, hissing even more than usual:

“AND IN THE MIDST OF ALL THIS YOU ARE WITH A BROOMSTICK! WOULD YOU MIND GIVING ME THE COURTESY OF AN EXPLANATION…” and with a slightly gravelly voice in which his astonishment was clearly evident he added, “…Longbottom?”

“B…but lights out haven’t been called yet” murmured the above-mentioned Longbottom with the first thing that sprung to his mind, but at the sight of the blood draining from the professor’s face, making him look even more like a corpse, he quickly corrected himself. “I'm sorry, sir! I swear, sir! It's not my fault! My broom was blown away by the wind! And I... and me... and the window...”

“OUUUT!” Snape’s finger, sharp as a bird’s claw, shot up towards the door. There was no need for a second invitation.

“100 POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR AND YOU WILL WASH THE ASTRONOMY TOWER! FROM TOP TO BOTTOM!” the pulsing-with-rage voice flew after the hurriedly fleeing student.

His trembling legs made an attempt to cling to the last step, but that’s where Hermione came to the rescue. With one hand she pushed the Extendable Ears back into her robe pocket and with the other she grabbed her classmate by the arm and dragged him along the corridor so swiftly that the tails of her robe rose behind her almost as infernally as Professor Snape’s usually did.

Continuing to squeeze Neville’s arm, she flung open the door of the toilet with her foot and pushed her prisoner inside.

“Boy’s” he said, sluggishly resisting. But Hermione did not seem embarrassed. With one flick of her wand she put a soundproofing charm on the room and turned to the interlocutor with such a furious face, that in comparison even Snape’s looked just a little irritated.

“You idiot!” she bellowed, and the Gryffindorian hurriedly went into explanations.

“I swear I wasn’t going to break the window! I tried Alohomora, as we agreed, but apparently it was protected by other spells! And then I saw The Sorting Hat through the glass – right under my nose, you know? All I had to do was pull the sword out of it, Snape wouldn’t even notice it’d gone! Who knew that jerk would return so suddenly?! And if you're talking about the invisibility cloak, I took it off on purpose when I realised Snape was already outside the door and I was still lying in splinters of glass! Do you think he wouldn’t have had the brains to lock up the office and search every inch of it? And how would I explain to him that I have Harry Potter’s cloak? That’s why I preferred to show myself up and talk pure gibberish – better if he just thinks of me as a complete idiot than…”

“You _are_ a complete idiot,” groaned Hermione doomingly, handing him a flask. “Drink and don’t wince so dramatically. It’s not about WHAT you said to him, Harry, the thing is, Neville wouldn’t have said ANYTHING, but would have gone speechless and just wheezed with fear.”

That was a fair point… Harry rubbed his forehead habitually, caught another of Hermione’s annoyed looks and cursed under his breath. Merlin, it probably would have been better if he’d transformed into Lavender Brown!

***

Only a month ago their plan appeared to be quite feasible. Almost immediately after the announcement of Dumbledore's will, it became clear that they would have to return to Hogwarts. First of all, after giving the question much thought, it seemed reasonable to assume that one of the Horcruxes is hidden in the castle – the place where Voldemort, for the first time in his life, felt the true power of his magic. It gave meaning to the otherwise idiotic returning of an aspiring Dark Lord with a request for a teaching post – and that’s when his dark-magical inclinations were already well-known to Dumbledore. For having such plans for the future, it is highly unlikely he really desired to acquire the position. However, one might’ve logically presumed that it was on this brief visit to Hogwarts that Tom Riddle hid his Horcrux, whatever it was, in the depths of the ancient castle.

Secondly, the sword of Gryffindor was kept in the headmaster’s office. And since Dumbledore had seen fit to bequeath it to Harry, – with certain realisation that this clause in his will would arouse the interest of both the Ministry and the Death Eaters, – then their house relic was destined to play an important role in this war, and therefore it would be a dreadful mistake to leave a potential weapon in the hands of the enemy.

And finally, there was a man in the school, whom half of magical Britain hated almost as much as the Dark Lord himself. A traitor, a murderer, an informer, a Death Eater and, for almost a whole week, the new Headmaster of Hogwarts – Severus Snape. His proximity to Voldemort gave a hypothetical opportunity to somehow learn about the plans of the dark side and prevent their implementation. Unfortunately, the key word here still remained ‘hypothetically’...

However, it would seem highly unwise to return to school with a proudly raised head with its distinctive zigzag shaped scar, considering the large reward offered by the Ministry for capturing Harry Potter. Hermione, being a worthy disciple of Professor McGonagall, suggested transfiguring Harry into someone else. She even brought, as a sample, a pile of Muggle magazines with posters of handsome lead singers of various bands inserted in the middle of them. Nevertheless, given the fact that this year many parents chose not to send their children to an educational establishment headed by a killer and All-Know-Who’s supporter, the appearance of a new face, against the backdrop of a missing Potter, would have caused too much suspicion. Besides, to transfigure himself was beyond Harry’s power, and even Hermione managed to do it successfully only half the time. (Once they had to wait a whole week before his hair lost an exotic blue colour.)

That’s why the news from Neville, whose grandmother categorically refused to let him go back to school, came at just the right time. Despite Augusta Longbottom’s dream of making a hero out of her grandson, she firmly believed that in view of Mr and Mrs Longbottom’s past and the dubious talents of their son, his stay at Hogwarts was a serious threat to the continuation of their bloodline.

They had learnt brewing Polyjuice Potion back in the second year; luckily Neville’s flavour was much more acceptable than Goyle’s. The next step also went smoothly: they enlisted the support of not only Neville, but also his grandmother herself, who promised to supply the grandson’s hair in the right amount via owl post.

And then their problems began.

Neville could not play Quidditch, fly on a broomstick without subsequent fractures, succeed in any other subject than Herbology, rub the scar on his forehead, squint at a blackboard, conjure up a stag Patronus, and to top it all, apparently, say in front of Professor Snape’s divine countenance any words more articulate than a convulsive wheeze.

Harry sighed a long sigh…

It was the second week of classes and their first attempt to steal the sword from Snape had just failed miserably.

“And now I have to wash the tower all night long,” complained Harry, watching Hermione chewing her lip in concentration.

“Uh-huh,” she nodded thoughtfully, and it became clear that he would get no sympathy from her.


	2. Chapter 2

Clouds were gathering over Hogwarts. Literally gathering – they were encroaching on the school from all sides, darkening the approaches to the Astronomy Tower, over which they were twisting into one dense tangle, forming a viciously grinning giant skull.

“Fugly piece of crap!” said Ron angrily, when they ran across the deserted yard, rushing to their first lesson.

They hurried rather out of habit: none of them relished Muggle Studies, however it was now considered a compulsory subject. Besides, the Dark Mark was irrigating the surrounding territory of the castle with a black icy rain; one glance of which made the desire to get out of bed completely disappear. At first Ron feared that the rain was also some sort of curse placed on Hogwarts, but sensible Hermione convinced him that the black rain was pouring all day and all night long solely for increased deterrence: “If the enemy wished to put a jinx on you, Ronald, he would find a less labour-intensive method.” Nevertheless, because of the rain, or for other reasons, Ron was in a pretty rotten mood. In the old days he wouldn’t hesitate to complain about it to his friends, but now he was too embarrassed – after all, for them it was even worse.

Walking to Ron’s right, Hermione nodded absent-mindedly in response to his fair comment about the artistic taste of the Dark Lord, but didn’t even lift her head up to the sky. By all appearances, her thoughts were completely focused on Muggle Studies, the classes of which were only slightly less hideous than Defence Against the Dark Arts (the first two words could be easily crossed out from the title of the book). In the previous lesson Professor Alecto Carrow utterly tortured Hermione with questions about the deprived-of-the-magical-power freaks. Needless to say, the Mudblood had to know about them more than a true wizard should. In the process, of course, the entire class was reminded of who the Mudblood are and why they are worse than Squibs.

The concept of impure blood was being heavily enforced – not yet in the form of a law, but already at the level of a school code. On the first day of classes, Filch, bursting with joy, hung out at every corner of castle the new set of regulations, which he didn’t forget to update on a daily basis, despite the fact that the sheets of parchment, until they were enchanted, were regularly burned and torn to shreds. Be that as it may, Hermione, from now on, sat alone at the back of the classes, having no right to start a conversation with pureblood wizards (in any case, it would be a bad idea concerning the Slytherins), and she even had to sleep apart from the others.

Hermione, with her characteristic reasonableness, said that it wasn’t a big deal, the fact that her friends were still with her was more than enough. Actually, sitting in the classroom in the farthest corner, she didn’t attract unnecessary attention, and half of the bedrooms in Gryffindor Tower were empty anyway, so her forced reclusion wasn’t at all conspicuous. But who would believe in such statements from the former prefect? Especially since somewhere around the day after tomorrow the first lesson of the Dark Arts loomed. Junior years, who had already survived this nightmare, were talking about it with a shudder. They said that in his classes, Amycus Carrow came close to committing tortures, which primarily concerned the Gryffindors, and especially the Mudbloods, who, according to him, were kept at school only for one reason – for others to practice on. What, in this case, could happen to a friend of escapee Harry Potter was not difficult, or probably better to say, pretty difficult to imagine. However, as Hermione herself rightly pointed out, the business that awaited them at Hogwarts was far more important than her own comfort.

Ron personally thought the question was moot. Although, despite the fact that the number of returned-to-school students was reduced by half, many of them continued to attend classes without the justification of helping Harry Potter to seek the Horcruxes. And that, in his opinion, was quite a feat. To be honest, Ron didn’t understand why they did this and he wasn’t sure that, if he had a choice, he could persuade his feet to drag him into these sad walls, to spend every day in front of Snape and his henchmen. This could please only those freaks who dreamt of joining their ranks. Even now Ron shivered with disgust.

Of course, many returned to school by pure inertia – no war was officially declared, and Hogwarts wasn’t closed. In addition, the message to the magic community was crystal clear: the Ministry (and therefore He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) was not interested in closing the school. Not everyone was ready to go against this unspoken directive. It was understandable that keeping children in one place was much more convenient in terms of monitoring the children themselves, and as a means of influencing their parents. If not every day, then every other day, reports of the disappearance of this or that wizard, and even the whole family, not to mention the regular loss of Muggles, appeared. However, a formal declaration of war hadn’t been made.

Come to think of it, come to _really_ think of it, there were still some positive moments in Hogwarts. For the time being, only half of the teachers were Death Eaters, or dreamt of becoming such. For the time being, with the help of Professors McGonagall and Slughorn, there was still a chance to learn something useful for protection. For the time being, it was less scary being together then apart, sitting in the parents' homes, waiting every minute for an attack. For the time being, there was still a hope of coming up with something – to assemble the resistance, to kick the Death Eaters out of Hogwarts… They might have lost Dumbledore, but they were still together. If they separated, if the school closed, it would be even harder to get together again. Only this thought lightened Ron’s heart and gave at least some sense to the absurd preparations for their N.E.W.T.s. Tonight, when all detentions have been accomplished, Dumbledore's Army was to be gathered in the Room of Requirement – for the first time after the death of the man in whose honour they were named. Perhaps, after this meeting, the future will not look so gloomy… Then again – the Horcruxes… Although the Horcruxes were rather bumming Ronald out – he had absolutely no idea how, and by what principle, they were supposed to find them, but hoped that Harry knew better where to start.

Harry, striding on Ron’s left in a very non-Neville manner, wasn’t actually sure he could find even one of Voldemort’s Horcrux on his own. However, he would never admit it to his friends. Why then did they risk everything and return to Hogwarts, enduring the Death Eater’s mistreatment and endangering Hermione? Harry was especially ashamed of himself because of Hermione. Of course she didn’t have to be implored, and came to school voluntarily although not just because of her constant desire for knowledge. But, right in front of her, Ron and he had been vehemently discouraging Ginny from going to Hogwarts, and managed to do exactly that. Ginny yelled at Ron, stopped talking to Harry, but agreed to stay as a messenger between Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix. And Hermione went to school. And everyone knew why. Because without her intelligence it was pointless to try to solve the riddles of the Dark Lord. Because she was a powerful witch. Because... well, because she was always with them, and their trio always did everything better together. Because she was _their_ Hermione.

After thinking about his friends, Harry smiled, but the smile immediately vanished from his face as they entered the arches of Hogwarts. Everything that was happening at school caused Harry a feeling that could easily fit into Ron’s emotionally deep comment. While in the castle, Harry began to loathe the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters even more intensely than ever for forcing him to think so badly of Hogwarts. To hate Hogwarts was almost as unimaginable as hating Professor Dumbledore, but of the old school and its former headmaster there was practically nothing left. It was always almost empty in the corridors, and always very quiet. Even all the ghosts hid themselves away somewhere. There was no Quidditch, no weekend trips to Hogsmeade, and not even the Start-of-Term Feast to greet the first-years. Senior-years, on their own initiative, had to welcome the nine new scared-to-death students in the Common Rooms and hand them gifts, – remembralls and bags of sweets, – from their own stockpiles. Stocks, by the way, were coming to an end – funny knick-knacks became impossible to get. The last outpost – the Weasley brothers' shop – was burned down a month ago. But more importantly, there had not been the Sorting ceremony as such – the new headmaster was absent (“No doubt made a side trip to Voldemort’s heinous Sabbat” thought Harry gloomily), and both Carrows resolved to enrol all newcomers in Slytherin. And later, in the dead of night, Professor McGonagall, with the Sorting Hat, tracked down the confused kids and somehow brought them to their correct Houses. Fortunately, the Hat's decision was irreversible, so even the returned Snape couldn’t eliminate it. What dark, despondent days… Where are you, Professor Dumbledore?

Continuing to recall all the misadventures of the first week at school, ‘Neville’ walked into the classroom, followed by his friends. A dim, bleak room – hardly surprising, considering the eternal twilight outside – with half of the desks standing unoccupied. In the corner, near the door, towered a cabinet or a huge box, covered with a black cloth. Nothing else was waiting for them there. The final year of Hogwarts comprised only twenty-five people. Most of them were, of course, the Slytherins, including gorilla-esque Crabbe and Goyle – these two served as sneaks to Draco Malfoy. Draco himself was listed in Hogwarts purely nominally; he was busy with the orders of the Dark Lord, though this didn’t stop him from being the Head Boy of the school. From Gryffindor there were eight students, including the inseparable trio, Dean Thomas, who, being a Muggle-born, was also resettled in a separate bedroom, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. From Hufflepuff only Hannah Abbott and Justin Finch-Fletchley risked finishing the magical education, and from Ravenclaw — Terry Boot and Parvati’s twin, Padma… Well, with so many people, they’d certainly kick Voldemort’s butt, without a doubt!

“Hurry up, Mr Longbottom!” an irascible Alecto Carrow urged. “Because of you, we won’t have time to study anything.”

Total madness! Most recently, she had fought them on the stairs of the infamous Astronomy Tower, striving to kill as many students as she could, and now, as if nothing had ever happened, she was strolling around the class as a teacher… except she looked more like a gargoyle.

“As if we had something valuable to study,” hissed Harry, plunking himself down on a bench next to Ron and not even bothering to take out the parchment to write on. Harry was also in a spectacularly foul mood – he was tormented by the senselessness of what was going on, had a crippling headache and his invisible scar was aching.

“Did you say something, Mr Longbottom?” Professor Carrow demanded eagerly. Harry shook his head in silence. And why did she choose to pick on him today? Though, better him, than Hermione…

“If you, Mr Longbottom, are no longer interested in the lesson, get up from your desk,” the gargoyle insidiously continued.

Harry exchanged glances with Ron, but obediently rose to his feet.

“Now, with the help of Mr Longbottom, we’ll try to understand the difference between how the simple Stunning Spell affects the wizard and the Muggle,” Alecto explained. “We all know that Muggles are inherently weak and flawed creatures, unable to resist the simplest magical effect. We have already said that this is one of the reasons why they are doomed to extinction in this world. I can see that for you, Mr Longbottom, this simple concept is not yet sufficiently understood. This is not surprising – I noticed that you never write anything in my classes, I am even starting to wonder if you actually know how to write…”

“I think Snape personally trained his minions how to teach,” whispered Ron to an utterly bored Harry. Harry couldn’t help but grin – after all the abominations that he had heard about himself over six years from Snape, there wasn’t much that could shock him. However, his grin influenced Alecto in the most negative way: she stopped short her theoretical opening, which was carefully outlined by the flank of Slytherins, and changed her tone abruptly.

“Mr Longbottom, since you are not listening anyway, I suggest you walk to the middle of the class right now.”

Intrigued Harry shrugged his shoulders and got out from behind the desk. Is it a new type of punishment? Anyone who doesn’t want to study will have to stand in front of class for the whole lesson? Pure idiocy. Nevertheless, Harry still didn’t understand what he had done that made Professor Carrow set her sights on him at the first place. It turned out there was no punishment; the lesson went on its way.

“Now you, Hermione,” the wicked teacher snapped. This was a current vogue too. Muggle-borns were now called simply by their first name. Luckily, Dean Thomas was also in the class, because if Miss Granger had been the only leper in the room, a simple ‘Mudblood’ would have done.

Hermione was a little bit surprised – she’s been rarely asked these days, even if she had raised her hand, which in Muggle Studies she would never do anyway. The Slytherins, as usual, brightened in anticipation for the new spectacle, and as Gryffindor’s Know-It-All passed them, walking from her back seat in the half-empty classroom, they complimented her with a few unflattering comments.

“Now we have a wizard who will cast the spell, and a witch who will try her best to protect herself,” Alecto told. “All we need next is to find a Muggle for comparison. And here he is.”

Professor Carrow waved her wand, and the black cloth disappeared from the box, which turned out to be a cage, and in this cage sat a 12-year-old boy. His eyes were round with fear, but he sat very quietly. He must have been under the paralysing spell.

A deadly silence fell over the class. Harry was struck dumb with horror. Many evil species were showed to them in this way, but a living human being? Hermione turned pale as death and clenched her fist so hard that her nails stuck into her palm.

“And now,” continued Alecto, giving a glance around the enfolded-in-silence class, “Mr Longbottom will show us…”

“What happened to him, why is he in the cage?” squeaked Hermione.

But the witch didn’t even turn back to her.

“…show us a difference…”

“Why is he in the cage?” Hermione shrieked.

Harry quickly grabbed his friend by the shoulders, feeling that she was about to attack the Death Eater with her bare hands. Fortunately, this time Professor Carrow vouchsafed her an answer.

“You seem to dare to speak first?” she said coldly. “Minus fifty points from Gryffindor and nightly laundry especially for you. You are, I heard, a lover of the house-elves? So help them out.”

What the hell did she mean ‘fifty points from Gryffindor’? Was there anybody who cared about these stupid points? The madness grew rapidly. Ron returned to the situation in hand.

“Even if it’s two hundred and fifty points from Gryffindor, or all points at once, I also want to know why is he in the cage?!” he bellowed, jumping to his feet.

What happened next was like an avalanche. Everyone leapt from their seats, vociferating loudly.

The Gryffindors bawled at Professor Carrow, and the Slytherins at the Gryffindors. Only the Muggle boy remained quite calm, sitting in his cage, which Alecto, as a precaution, isolated from the agitated students with a magical field. Dean Thomas was the first who tried to leave the outrageous lesson, but the door, with a flick of Alecto’s wand, slammed shut right in front of his nose. It certainly made an impression – everyone clammed up at once.

“We could attack her all together and take her wand away…” muttered Ron, who already was standing next to his friends. Unfortunately, this act would serve them no good.

Some separate remarks still flew around the class.

“If only my mum knew…”

“We have to report it to the headmaster…”

“Oh, yeah, _to Snape_?”

“Better go straight to the Ministry…”

“Yeah, sure, _to the Ministry_ …”

“Do you think he’s alive?”

“What else can he be?”

That was from one side. And from the other – from the side of Slytherin – was only a frightening silence.

“The Muggle is sitting in the cage because he is an experimental sample,” Alecto gladly explained, as soon as she managed to regain everyone’s attention. “As I have already said, you need to understand the difference of the effect of magic on wizards and non-wizards. On this simple question we have lost a lot of time. Let’s revert to you, Mr Longbottom. Show us how the ‘Incendio’ spell works – first on the Mudblood example, and then on the Muggle – and we’ll finish with a practical demonstration for today.” With a quick motion of her wand, the witch removed the barrier from the cage.

Harry put his hands in his pockets and carefully squeezed his wand in one of them. Perhaps, during the D.A. training, he would love to practice the Fire-Making Charm, but he didn’t want to set the cage, or Hermione, on fire.

“But this spell cannot be used against humans,” he said, not taking his eyes off the Death Eater. “In this case it’s considered to be an offensive magic for duelling, and using duelling spells are forbidden in the school grounds.”

“It _was_ forbidden, Mr Longbottom,” Alecto corrected him, “until recently. Who wants to replace the indecisive Mr Longbottom?”

“Me!” Goyle quickly thrust his hand into the air and almost at the same time (as if he was afraid of being scooped) added “Incendio!”

“Expelliarmus!” screeched Hermione.

“Impedimenta!” Harry supported her, snatching his wand out of his pocket.

Goyle's wand jumped out of his hand, and he himself was thrown across the class to Hermione's desk. His spell swept past the cage and hit the door, which immediately flared like a torch.

“Stop it!” Alecto angrily waved her wand at the cage side, making it disappear with a slight pop. With a furiously distorted face, the witch turned back to the unruly final years without lowering her wand. However, the students never found out what kind of spell she was going to use against them. Suddenly, Professor Carrow yelped, begun to spin around, shook her left arm in the air and disapparated.

The Gryffindors exchanged flabbergasted looks with the Slytherins.

The door was burning merrily, filling the classroom with a thick, acrid black smoke, from which everyone had already started to cough. Injured Goyle was slowly getting up from the floor. At the place where the cage had stood only the black cloth was left, reminding them that they had not imagined this most enlightening lesson.

“А-guamenti,” Ron mumbled automatically, directing a cascade of water onto the fire.

The flames hissed and began to diminish.

The students, slowly coming to their senses, started to pack their bags. It looked like Professor Carrow wasn’t going to return to give them their homework.

“I'll get you later,” Goyle promised gloomily, pushing Hermione with his shoulder, and went to pick up his wand.

“Still here? Go on, run to Draco and don’t forget to complain,” Harry yelled at him.

“Neville...” Hermione sat down on the edge of the nearest desk, still shaking with adrenalin, but sanity rarely left Miss Granger.

“Hermione, he was going to burn you!” Harry said indignantly.

“Neville!” his friend persisted, holding an expressive pause. “I don’t think you’ll manage it if they call Malfoy.”

“Draco? Come on, I…”

“And I think _you_ can’t do it, _Neville_!”

“Oh! You're right, perhaps,” Harry finally realised what she was trying to say to him. Fortunately Goyle hadn’t stopped to listen to their conversation, and the other classmates had already departed. All that was now left from the lesson were flakes of ash floating in the ankle-high water. Ron seemed to have overdone it with his fire-fighting skills.

“A couple more classes like this and even You-Know-Who won’t be scary to me,” grumbled Weasley, settling himself on the nearest chair and starting to pour water out of his sneakers. “And that was just our first lesson today! She disapparated right from Hogwarts, did you see? It means they’ve already removed some of the protective charms from the castle. Phew, it’s a good thing that Snape doesn’t teach us anymore. I bet the kid was real, not… experimental.”

“Of course he was real!” Hermione responded sharply. “And that wretch wanted us to burn him alive! Just imagine what they do to people who have fallen into their hands. Harry, can you imagine?”

“Neville…” Harry corrected her automatically. “Hermione, I don’t even have words to describe how terrible it is, but we already knew that the Dark Lord is not one to be trifled with. That’s exactly why we should…”

“…find the Horcruxes, I know! But we’ve been here a week, and still haven’t found anything. Life is too short to search the whole of Hogwarts! In the meantime, the Death Eaters will mock and torture anyone who they have caught… We have to think of something else... I don’t know. We need to find out somehow where he could possibly have hidden them.”

Harry automatically smoothed his hair, forgetting that Neville never needed to do it.

“Hermione, I can’t penetrate Voldemort's thoughts so deeply,” he said very quietly, “and I don’t think there is another way to clarify the location of the Horcruxes. It’s highly unlikely that he shared such an important secret with someone.”

“Maybe if we get him drunk, he’ll tell us?”

“Not funny, Ron,” Hermione snapped. She was still taken aback by the Muggle Studies lesson. “Although, if you manage to get close enough to You-Know-Who, you may have a chance. The last one in your life.”

“No, we can never hope to get that close to Voldemort,” said Harry thoughtfully. “Although you're right, Hermione, if only we could find out something else about him… I don’t know – where he has been, who he knew…”

“…what his hobbies were,” Ron joined in sarcastically. “Maybe he did scuba diving, and the Horcrux is not at Hogwarts but at the bottom of the ocean floor. Or he played Quidditch, and the Horcrux is sealed in the Snitch. No wonder we can’t catch it. We can continue to try guessing for the rest of our lives! Such things can only be learnt if you live together in perfect harmony. But to live in perfect harmony with You-Know-Who…”

“Snape might know,” Hermione mused. “If anyone knows it must be him. He apparates almost every day to his master, or he used to do so, at least… He’s like his right hand now.”

“More likely his left foot,” growled Harry. “Come on, Hermione, Snape would rather eat his own robe than confide with us. It would be easier to ask Lucius Malfoy, who, by the way, may also know something…”

“No, we’re thinking the wrong way,” Hermione tossed her bushy hair irritably, as she always did in those rare occasions when she couldn’t find a solution to the problem. “You-Know-Who wouldn’t tell Snape, Malfoy, or anyone else about the Horcruxes. Maybe there is some kind of spell that could help us to identify them?”

Ron and Harry shook their heads doubtfully.

“Only if in the Restricted Section...” Potter mumbled very insecurely.

“I doubt even there,” added Weasley.

“Well, not necessarily to identify the Horcruxes – just the objects containing the black magic. I think I should look it up.” Hermione brightened up, although it wasn’t the safest idea to skulk into the Restricted Section right under the Death Eaters’ noses.

“If such a spell existed, Professor Dumbledore would have known about it,” Harry pointed out correctly.

“Maybe he knew, but just didn’t have time to tell you!” exclaimed Hermione. “I rather think he actually had no time to tell you a lot of other stuff.”

“A lot of other stuff?” Ron's eyes widened. “All these secrets are already doing my head in! Okay, shall we go for lunch? Since we didn’t find any Horcruxes, we have two more classes today. At this rate we’ll make it to the N.E.W.T.s for sure.” He mumbled, rising from his chair. “So, should we clean up or let that Carrow-witch be in trouble for it?”

“And she’ll be reprimanded by whom exactly?” Harry grinned, pulling his wand out to finally tidy the classroom.

“Yes, if we don’t hurry up, the Death Eaters will tear the entire Hogwarts to pieces,” Ron let out a heavy sigh.

Without a charred door, dirty water on the floor and a broken desk, the room looked much nicer, although it was generally not very pleasant.

“And the worst part is,” Hermione said in a dead voice “that now I have to do the laundry all night long. Under the Dementors’ watch and, most likely, with no magic at all.”

***

After the two remaining lessons – Transfiguration and Herbology, both of which were fairy tales in comparison to the paranoid Muggle Studies class – the inseparable trio temporarily split up, so they could skulk into the Room of Requirement from different directions. They were anxious to get there for two reasons: firstly, it was the only place in school where they could communicate with friends safely, and secondly, they were intrigued by something Hagrid had told them.

Technically, since the regime in Hogwarts changed over, the groundskeeper was forbidden to enter the castle. But today he really longed to come and even promised to bring with him some marvellous magical animal that ought to ‘kind of’ help them in the fight. All the way to the forking of the corridors, where they parted, the friends wondered what sort of a creature it might be – they seemed to have already met all the imaginable dangerous beasts possible at Hagrid’s. However, what they saw exceeded all their expectations. Harry came last, and when he stepped into the Room of Requirement the others were studying the gift of the generous half-giant. Hagrid, looking quite pleased, sat there too, wiping sweat from his forehead in relief. Apparently, getting into the castle coupled with a pet wasn’t an easy task. Before approaching the closed circle that Dumbledore's Army formed around the creature, Harry made his first impression of the animal.

“He looks more like a dragon…” – Parvati.

“No, he’s too fluffy for a dragon…” – Dean.

“And the wings are too small…” – Hannah.

“Though, he has a tail with feathers. I think, he’s actually a bird…” – Terry.

“He can’t be a bird, look at his hooves…” – Justin.

“My grandfather wrote about these animals, but he died before he managed to publish the article…” – Luna.

“Do you think he’ll make a good photo?” – Colin.

“And I still think he’s a carnivore – look at his teeth…” – Padma.

“And if you count his legs, he’s more of a spider…” – Hermione.

“Please, not a spider!” – Ron.

Harry stood next to the others silently, and honestly tried to figure out what kind of beast Hagrid had brought them.

“Oh! Hello, Harry!” Luna, next to whom he had stationed himself, gave a friendly shake of her carrot earrings and stared back at the creature, which she obviously found even more interesting than Potter.

Harry nodded at first, then turned white and looked into the mirrored front of the bureau that stood there by the door – no, everything seemed to be fine...

“What are you talking about, Luna?” He asked in a suddenly hoarse voice. “I'm Neville…”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” the girl smiled again. “And what did I call you?”

No, Lovegood is not the measure of accuracy. Harry swallowed, repressing a noise in his ears.

“He’s very affectionate an’ trustin’,” the gamekeeper praised his monster as always. “A very rare type he is, yes, an’ almost extinct. It’s called…” what exactly the beast was called neither Hagrid managed to pronounce, nor the students to catch.

“Dumbledore entrusted ’im ter me… jus’ before he… well, yeh understan’. Righ’ before he was…” Hagrid continued, wiping with his sleeve not sweat but tears this time. “I kept ’im in the forest at firs’, in a clearin’… But now such times have come, I’m afraid they migh’ take ’im away. The beast is rare an’ useful in combat magic. Dumbledore told me so ’imself!”

Well, if Dumbledore did… Yet, looking at the marvellous creature of rare magical power, Harry couldn’t shake off a feeling of mild distrust. The beast looked very boring. Not externally – from this side, on the contrary, he was quite…memorable. But all the time, while he was being discussed, and carefully stroked, and boldly squeezed, the beast, which was about the size of eight Harrys, showed no activity whatsoever. He lay, opening and closing his eyes melancholy and grinding something slowly with his heavy jaws. Maybe he could demoralise the enemy simply with his appearance, or perhaps he had a switch?

“Erm, Hagrid? And how does he… what is his magic feature?” Harry asked cautiously, having been wondering for a long time how to defeat Voldemort.

The gamekeeper looked at him thoughtfully, scratched the back of his head with a huge hairy hand and sighed dejectedly.

“Who knows it now? The beast is rare…”

Ok, a rare beast – they understood that much so far…

“I thought perhaps we could keep ’im here fer now, at the Room o’ Requirement,” continued Hagrid. “He surely can’t be taken away from here – who would think o’ askin’ the room fer somethin’ like tha’…”

A fair point.

“Does he eat a lot? And what exactly does he eat?” Hermione asked anxiously. She had already realised that even the house-elves couldn’t be told such a secret, which meant they would have to deliver food for the ‘weapon’ themselves. In turns.

“He eats everythin’!” Hagrid answered delightedly. “Whatever I gave ’im, he ate it! A portion is about a bucketful. But once in two days.”

Thank goodness for that then!

“He’s ill, though, a little… Feathers are moltin’ out o’ his tail, an’ his fur got dull, see…” complained the gamekeeper. “I think he caught a cold – the wind was quite strong las’ week, an’ I didn’ stable ’im at the shelter. No’ that I have such a big shelter anyway… He’ll recover, nuthin’ ter worry abou’…”

“And what’s his name?” Harry asked curiously.

“I call ’im Spooky. He seems ter answer ter this name.” Hagrid said a bit embarrassedly.

It seemed that he was, as always, sorry to part with his pet. But a long goodbye only meant extra tears. So the gamekeeper kissed Spooky on the top of his head for the last time, instructed the D.A. to cherish the beast like the apples of their eyes, and dragged himself back to his hut. The malicious headmaster still occasionally paid him a visit in the evenings to check if everything was under control.

Dumbledore's Army carefully stepped away from the sleeping Spooky. This time, perhaps, under the influence of Hagrid, the Room of Requirement took on the form of a cosy hut, and everybody settled themselves on benches along the walls. A lot of things needed to be discussed – help for the first years, resisting the new vile teachers, especially the new headmaster, communications with the Order of the Phoenix and help in the war against the Dark Lord. And now the maintenance of Spooky as well. As for the youngsters, they sorted that out quite quickly – they’d need to help them out to avoid detentions, teach some defensive magic and arrange at least some small celebrations in order to preserve the atmosphere of the former Hogwarts. As for the Death Eaters, they managed even faster: to do everything possible to drive them out of the school. It would be especially good to eradicate Snape. For no matter what one might have thought, it was pretty obvious, that they would never get a bigger scoundrel over them than Snape.

Discussion of the further questions, however, faced some complications. The Dark Mark above the castle seemed to always be on the alert, and therefore connections to the house at Grimmauld Place couldn’t be arranged. The vicious artefact dissipated all the magical effects from the outside, and the Death Eaters never got tired of double-checking the fireplaces and the tame owls.

As for the fight against the Dark Lord, the plan looked unrealisable indeed. Primarily due to the fact that Voldemort wasn’t going to go to any fight yet. Instead, he harassed wizards and non-wizards without any apparent regularity, ran his long white fingers into the Ministry of Magic and looked for the Chosen Boy. In other words, he occupied himself with anything, but Hogwarts' last years. Perhaps, quite fortunately for them.

They then talked about what could be expected by the end of the year. Anything could. About the Dark Lord – but what was there new to be said about him? About Harry – he must be doing well: hidden and protected by the Order, no obligation to go to school and to come up with any resistance plans, he just had to sit and wait for the right moment. Ron tried to mention he had recently contacted Potter by secret means, and pointed out Harry had his own important things to do, but all that sounded very abstract.

“It’s understandable that Potter is better staying away from Hogwarts,” Justin Finch-Fletchley expressed a shared opinion. “You-Know-Who is looking for him everywhere, and here he’ll find him straight away. Potter is afraid of this, and he can’t be blamed for it, really.”

“As if You-Know-Who couldn’t kill us for other reasons than Harry,” Hannah remarked in a low voice, and added even quieter, “but since we all decided to fight, better to do it together, don’t you think?”

‘Neville’ shifted uncomfortably in his seat and wanted to thrust in a word but was interrupted by Dean.

“I agree. Potter is the Chosen One, right? Then why does he need to hide? What is he waiting for? When You-Know-Who accumulates more power?”

“Maybe the right moment hasn’t come yet,” ‘Longbottom’ managed to interject finally.

“What moment? We are tortured here, and don’t get any news from outside. How long should we wait for the right moment? Maybe better to act now, without that moment?”

“You think so?” Hermione said acidly. “Then why don’t you go and fight the Death Eaters and Voldemort yourself? If we are told to wait, then we should do so. Dumbledore explained everything to Harry. He told him what to do and when.”

“Dumbledore was murdered by Snape, who holds us under his authority now.” Terry disagreed.

“In slavery!” Parvati corrected him.

“What if Potter won’t be able to do it?”

“What if he changed his mind?”

“‘What if, what if’… If we’re going to quarrel, we might as well call it a day,” Ron cut off the dissenters. “Until the next time, I mean. Harry is my friend, by the way. Do you think it’s hard only for you now? Don’t we have anything better to do than to tear Potter to pieces behind his back? Let’s topple Snape instead. That would be a real help!”

Even Hermione was amazed by Ron’s ability to put the situation in its proper perspective. The idea of disposing Snape immediately diverted everyone from thinking about Harry and united the team. All of them were quite pleased and encouraged leaving the Room of Requirement, and planned to hold the meeting again sometime next week. Another ten minutes or so the corridors of Hogwarts were filled with their muffled voices.

“Use Cruciatus on him…”

“Better Imperius…”

“Imperius might not work…”

“Throw a dungbomb into his office…”

“But where can you buy one now?”

“Set fire to all the papers on his desk …”

“Smash his lab…”

“Smash the lab _and_ set it on fire…”

“Now, this is too much, don’t you think?”

“And how he punished me in the first year for the burnt cauldron wasn’t too much?”

“Huh, the cauldron. I once spilled a Laugh-inducing Potion on his robe… I thought he’d kill me… He made me laugh for two hours for that…”

“Remember how he kept us from practicing before the Quidditch match final?”

“Or how he took points from our House and we were forbidden to go to Hogsmeade?”

“And that slick git works for the Dark Lord…”

“And he killed Dumbledore…”

“I think the Cruciatus seems more appropriate…”

And only ‘Neville’ was miserable. Ron and Hermione tried their best to cheer him up, but ‘Neville’ didn’t even want to talk about his especially fondly-beloved subject of revenge on Snape.

“It sucks when you’re considered a coward and a traitor,” he explained morosely as they approached the Fat Lady.

“The password is The Dark Lord,” said Hermione, wincing, and they walked into the common room through the portrait hole. “Don’t be ridiculous, we know you’re nothing like that.”

“And the others do too,” Ron joined in, “they’re just in despair. A pity, we can’t tell them the truth.”

Harry wanted to respond he was also in despair, but instead he just nodded. Why upset his friends once again? Everything sucked. They had no Horcruxes. Not one. Even the locket he had found with Dumbledore turned out to be a fake. He wasn’t a coward or a traitor, he was worse: a loser. Dumbledore abandoned him without any explanation of how to deal with Voldemort. Surely all this was not news to Ron and Hermione. But it wasn't the last of his problems… Harry suddenly felt a chill inside him, and his legs begun to falter. Apparently he stopped so abruptly and turned pale so rapidly that it was impossible not to notice. Hermione and Ron stared at him in confusion.

“What’s the matter with you?” Ronald asked in a whisper, although they were alone in the common room. “Is the Polyjuice Potion wearing off?”

“Your scar is hurting again?” said Hermione alarmed.

“Worse…” Harry looked up at his friends with terrified eyes. “Does anyone know where my toad is?”


	3. Chapter 3

Harry almost ripped his mouth apart.

Climbing with a bucket of water to the top of the Astronomy Tower, he was yawning so frantically that he could easily infect anyone with his contagious affliction, but here's the rub – there was nobody to bump into in the tower at midnight, even the poltergeist Peeves settled in more suitable places until dawn. Nevertheless, it was out of Harry’s hands – he couldn’t start his detention any earlier: the Hufflepuff fifth-years had just finished their astronomy lesson. (And when else to study the movements of the stars, if not in the dead of night?) Except the Hufflepuffs were already off to bed, and the next day their classes started after lunch, while Harry had yet to clean the whole tower before dragging himself to the Dark Arts class early in the morning.

He hated Snape. He always had, but it was usually a constant, steady emotion, incessantly fuelled by sources from his deep inner soul – a total scum, who gave Harry’s parents away to Voldemort, a brute, who bullied him from the first year, an envious coward, who ruined his godfather’s life, a traitor, who murdered Albus Dumbledore with the Killing Curse. Right now Harry’s hatred was experiencing a tidal wave and virtually drowning him, getting close to his very throat. What is more, he hated not only Snape, but also himself. Now, when he knew so much about the new headmaster of Hogwarts that he would like to know less, when the whole world could fall apart at any moment, and he came to school only to find the damned Horcruxes – why, in the name of Merlin, he continued to obey Snape? Didn’t he have anything more constructive to do but to clean the tower?

He would have been better spending his time reading some books about Horcruxes. Hermione seemed to have found something in the library. She had doted on the realm of Madam Pince even in the old days, and now she was kind of hiding there away from Hogwarts innovations, where, at least, she wasn’t forced to give way to the Slytherins and sit apart from the purebloods. Of course, Hermione would tell him tomorrow if she had come across anything interesting, however, even so, Harry still didn’t want to wash an endless spiral staircase. In fact, his punishment wasn’t the most horrible and humiliating, but, firstly, it was imposed by Snape, and secondly, Harry had the most difficult memories associated with this tower. With a bitter grin, Potter thought the new headmaster would be delighted to learn that he had made the Boy-Who-Lived clean the tower in which he had killed the previous headmaster, right in front of his, Harry's, eyes. Indeed, the detention turned out to be much harsher than one might have thought. However, Harry didn’t mean to shirk his duty, ‘Neville Longbottom’ had absolutely no intention of drawing attention to himself and reminding Snape the reason for his punishment. He’d rather wash the damn stairs.

Harry finally made it to the top. He could have pushed the door and gone out into the icy rain, to the opened platform of the tower, where…where irreparable damage had been done, but Harry decided not to do so. He was already in a pretty revolting mood. Trying not to waste time dwelling on the past, Harry, forcing himself to think only about the Horcruxes, dipped a large piece of cleaning rag, which he got from the house-elves, into the water and began mopping the stairs. One step, two steps, three steps. Sod that bloody Snape! Why in blazes did he barge into the office? Another half-minute...even a mere fifteen seconds, and they'd have had the sword! Though they still had nothing to chop with it – not even one single Horcrux. Four steps, five steps...

He wasn’t allowed to ask for help or to use magic, so Harry didn’t even bother to cheat; the punishment system was now especially well controlled at the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Six steps, seven steps... That’s right, he’ll be on these stairs until the morning for sure... The bucket needed to be pulled closer. Actually, Harry had to do a lot worse things when he lived at Dursley’s. To wash the stairs, even ve-ery long ones? Hah, easy peasy! Eight, nine steps… Boy, he could really do with some sleep. A hard school day, the meeting of Dumbledore's Army, all this venture with Hagrid and his Spooky, homework for tomorrow’s classes prepared in a slipshod manner (luckily nobody will say anything to Neville about it). If only he could lie down for a while. Ten, eleven… Poor Hermione! She’s also, most likely, not sleeping! Will the Carrows regularly send her to do the laundry or some other additional work? And what to do then? Perhaps she really shouldn’t have come to school? Twelve, thirteen... And where on earth is Trevor?

Harry, sighing a long sigh, had to admit to himself that it was time to replace the water in the bucket. A few hundred steps down – he lost count of how many – trying not to meet the Dementors patrolling the corridors of Hogwarts at night. Then the same number of steps up, with the refreshed bucket. Harry winced, looking at the fruits of his labour. They were quite modest. For now he had overcome only one astronomical spiral – the main feats awaited the young wizard ahead. Harry took the rag with a heavy grunt and, intending to dip it into the fresh water, suddenly froze, dumbfounded.

At the bottom of the bucket sat a toad. And something in its eyes told Harry it was _the_ toad. Taken by surprise, Harry leapt from the lower step, on which he stood, to the one above, where he placed the bucket, so quickly, that he slipped from the wet, eroded-by-time edge and slid down to the next twist of the spiral along with the clattering bucket. It was more frustrating than painful. Firstly, Harry was soaking wet, secondly, he now had to refill the bucket, and thirdly, Trevor had disappeared once again. Harry, beginning to suspect the toad of an adherence to unknown dark magic, searched every inch of the stairs at least five times, but Neville’s pet was gone. Having no other option, Harry wrung his cloak and humbly dragged himself downstairs to get more water. Steps, steps down, bucket and water, steps up, steps. Snape is a total freak! The only good thing is with each and every similar call his route will be reduced. Harry gritted his teeth and continued to serve his time.

He ran down these very stairs that dreadful night, as fast as he had ever run. Following the Death Eaters who were smashing up Hogwarts. Casting aside the enemies with his spells and jumping over their bodies, almost coming in range of the lethal teeth of a werewolf, almost losing Ginny (the heinous murderer Amycus, who tomorrow will come to their class under the guise of Professor Carrow, was already putting the Cruciatus Curse on a sixteen-year-old girl). The whole corridor adjacent to the stairs was overcrowded with fighting wizards and overfilled with combat spells. And now it was so quiet that Harry’s ears practically popped from the silence. He was all alone here – no Ginny, no Order of the Phoenix. And Dumbledore could never be here again. They thought they had won the battle, but in fact they had lost it. Hogwarts was captured from the inside.

Harry sat down on the steps somewhere in the middle of the stairs. It was way after three, and the torches on the walls were exchanging a fluttering twisting light with each other, the flames trembling in an invisible draught. The shadows danced on the walls and seemed to repeat the hideous images that slipped through the young man's mind. Though, it was a magical castle, so maybe its walls really could remember the last battle for Hogwarts. No, not the last one! They…they will fight again, their turn will come! They’ll regain Hogwarts, and it’ll become magnificent and fabulous, as it was with Dumbledore, or even better!

Harry continued mopping the stairs in a frenzy. He felt dog-tired, but managed to overcome his exhaustion and was pretty much surprised to find out the step he was rubbing was the final one. The bluish morning light was already creeping in through the side windows of the tower. Snape is a filthy despicable swine, and he’ll get his just deserts. Harry rinsed and wrung the rag, washed the bucket and with an emphasized neatness put it in its place. Then he went back to the stairs, hesitated in front of them for a couple of seconds and, slowly lowering the rolled-up sleeves of his sweater, began to climb back to the top. First twist of the spiral, the second, the third...

The roofless topmost platform met him with a pale pre-dawn glow, a blast of wind in his face and the usual icy rain. In short, everything looked exactly the same as on that fateful night. But what could have changed in the tower? The crenellations darkened against the background of the sky, the circular empty space was flooded by dead emerald light from the closely hanging Dark Mark. An unhealthy, lifeless light. As if in a dream, without knowing why – perhaps, in order to twist a knife in the open wound of his heart, Harry approached the place where he had stood, speaking for the last time with Professor Dumbledore. This is where the sick, withered, blackened, poisoned hand of the former Hogwarts headmaster slipped from the shoulder of the Chosen One. For good.

Harry moved closer, to the very battlement where an Avada Kedavra had hurled Albus Dumbledore from the highest tower of the castle. The ribbons of a crawling mist hid the grounds from his view, and the bright blue sky in combination with the glow of Voldemort’s mark gave the surroundings a sharp and almost eye burning contrast. But Harry no longer wanted to look at anything. He sat on the edge of the crenellated wall in the gap between two merlons and leaned his head against the weather-beaten stone that was drenched under the endless rain. Silly – was he hoping to be closer to Dumbledore here? Hoped to acquire soulful strength or ideas for a frightening, incomprehensible, but absolutely inevitable fight? Normally Harry wasn’t prone to melancholy, but right now, suddenly, the grief took hold of him. For a moment he had a feeling that there was no way out, his only option was to die just like Dumbledore, for if Dumbledore himself couldn’t think of anything better, why should he? Friends, teachers, the entire Hogwarts were far below, as if the tower again was separated from the whole world with a magic barrier. Harry felt the most profound loneliness. Professor Dumbledore used to know how to lighten it, but, just when Harry more than ever needed his advice, or the slightest hint of what should be done next, he wasn’t around anymore. Without him Harry was desperately close to sinking into despair from the realisation of his own powerlessness.

Harry automatically raised his hand to remove his glasses as it was uncomfortable to cry in them. He completely forgot he didn’t wear glasses! The hair of the last-year was completely wet, but it still didn’t attain the jet-black colour that was necessary to be Potter. He didn’t look like the hero or the hope, not even a tiny bit. Fortunately, the Dark Lord, who was searching for the Boy-Who-Lived everywhere, didn’t dare to sink into the consciousness of his nemesis at this very moment. Otherwise, he’d be utterly amazed to learn that the elusive Harry Potter was sitting on top of Hogwarts’ tallest tower, all alone, right under the Dark Mark, and bitterly mourning the death of his dear headmaster.

“I’m going nuts,” Harry said to himself. “Why in the name of Merlin’s pants am I sitting here, hugging stones, when I should be looking for Horcruxes or, at the very least, the toad?”

He flinched abruptly, detaching himself from the merlon with the intention of standing up, but remained where he was as if glued to the spot. He thought he saw something glittering at the very base of the crenellation, in a crack between the stones, covered by a thin layer of lichens and moss. Harry wiped the tears from his eyes and tried to retrieve the unidentified object. He struggled fruitlessly for two minutes or so before he remembered he had a magic wand. With the wand it was much easier to prise out the object and the next moment he finally fished out from the tower wall a small ribbed vial, apparently crystal and obviously filled with some sort of magical substance. Harry looked around (paranoia – only Voldemort’s Mark was watching him), patted his pockets in search of glasses, remembered once again he didn’t wear them anymore, and immersed himself in an examination of his find. After another half a minute he had to admit that the vial was relatively unremarkable – many wizards carried phials like this…for various reasons. Snape, for example, schlepped in them poisons, antidotes, a truth serum or a potion that pacified werewolves at full moon... The silvery-bluish cloudy-esque substance inside the vial actually looked pretty much like memories. The monogram ‘D’ on the crystal side awakened an unconscious, desperate hope that it could be a message from Professor Dumbledore. Perhaps he had left it here during that fateful night? Maybe the former headmaster had hoped that Harry would sooner or later, better sooner, return to this place? Harry was more than eager for the explanation to be exactly that. But in order to make the cherished conclusions, it was necessary to have a dip into these memories first. Harry didn’t see anything dangerous in the vial of somebody’s memories, so he carefully pushed the crystal container into his pocket with a trembling hand. In any case, it was already something. That’s what happens when one accepts their detention honestly. 


	4. Chapter 4

“I urgently need a quiet, safe place and a Pensieve.”

“And the toad,” Ron reminded him.

“What does the toad have to do with it?”

“Well, I dunno,” Ronald said dubiously. “Now you have two enemies: He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and the Boy-Who-Was-Born-At-The-End-Of-July. I’d say this is serious.  In comparison to You-Know-Who, who has seven, or even more, Horcruxes, Neville’s got only one toad, and he’ll never forgive you for losing it.”

“I almost caught Trevor,” groaned Harry. “But right now I think it’ll be easier to find the damn Horcruxes. All I need is a Pensieve…”

“And I need a safe place, a big cauldron and an hour to brew a portion of eternal sleep.” Hermione’s speech was slurred as her head lay face down on the table.

 “What do you need the portion for?”

“For drinking.”

Hermione’s hands, with which she was clasping her head, were rubbed raw, but she said it was nothing – if she quickly nipped into Madam Pomfrey’s after breakfast, they’ll be cured before the first lesson began. However, Hermione wanted to sleep a lot more than Harry – her detentions were set for every evening, and last night she didn’t manage to lie down even for a minute. Perhaps, the only person in the castle having a harder time than her was Dean Thomas, who spent the entire night cleaning the Slytherins part of Owlery. Though, that was a matter of opinion. Ron and Harry exchanged glances – Hermione flaked out by Hogwarts… How is it even possible?

“Maybe you’d better miss this lesson?” Ron asked timidly.

“Carrow’s? And go straight to detention instead?” smirked Hermione. “Mind you, it’s highly unlikely I’ll avoid a new detention. I can't even think straight. My head is as thick as Longbottom’s at Potions classes. Oh, sorry, Harry. What do you think he’ll give us for the first lesson? According to the book – either kikimoras or werewolves. It would be better if werewolves, at least we studied them with Snape. I even wrote him an essay. But if kikimoras, I’m certainly doomed. I wanted to read about them yesterday, but didn’t have time. Quite definitely going to get a detention.”

Hermione remained true to herself.

“Come on, Carrow’s lessons go horribly anyway,” Ron tried to calm his friend down, “everybody says that. Prepare, don’t prepare – it’s all the same. But I doubt he’s gonna ask us about kikimoras. He hasn’t given us any homework yet.”

“He hasn’t given _you_ ,” retorted Hermione, “but to _us_ , Mudbloods…”

Ron slammed the table so hard that Hermione lifted her head swiftly from the tablecloth and clutched her ear.

“Never call yourself this disgusting word, you hear me?!” Ron was so red with anger that even his freckles became darker.

“Yeah, it’s time to put an end to it,” Harry agreed. “Hermione, we greatly cherish you and so on…but maybe let’s forget about our plan? It’s too dangerous for you to stay at Hogwarts, the Death Eaters will finish you off. Why don’t Ron and I get in touch with you as soon as we find something, so you could just tell us your thoughts…”

Hermione narrowed her eyes.

“Have you found _much_? You and Ron?”

“Not yet, but if only I…”

“I, at least, delved, as I’m expected, into my stupid books and read _something_ in them,” sleep-deprived Hermione was especially shaggy-haired and especially dangerous.

“Hermione, I’d help you…” Harry began, but was interrupted by the girl once again.

“Do you two even know what a Horcrux is?” she was speaking in a whisper, but Harry still looked around anxiously. No, the Great Hall was almost empty, as too the rest of the castle, and only a couple of people were sitting at their table so far. They had come to breakfast so early that even the few students studying in Gryffindor hadn’t arrived yet.

“A Horcrux,” Hermione began very clearly, as though they were in class, “is not just a locket, or a trinket box, or a book into which one places a fragment of his soul, as you once explained to us, Harry. And as Dumbledore allegedly explained to you. The Horcrux is the soul itself, and it takes the form into which it was secreted, changing that form partly or entirely. It can take any form, including a live one. Do you understand what I’m talking about? The Horcrux can be in a tree, in Neville's toad, and even in you, Harry! It makes no difference to it. Because it will no longer be a diary, a tree, or a toad, bewitched or not. It will just be a Horcrux with Horcrux properties and the characteristics of its owner. Like Riddle’s diary, remember?”

Harry and Ron nodded synchronously, not realising what this sophisticated lecture is for when they haven’t even eaten yet.

“You don’t understand where I'm going with this, do you?” Hermione smartly guessed. “Guys, we don’t need to look for a tin, a pin, an old ring and such rubbish in the hope of finding a Horcrux. The Horcrux is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and nothing more. Therefore, we should look for him.”

“For the Dark Lord?” croaked Ronald. “B-but how?”

“I don’t know yet,” Hermione admitted honestly, shrugging her shoulders, “perhaps they should somehow react to his magic. For example, show some activity, when he calls his Death Eaters with the help of the Dark Mark.”

Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose, again forgetting about the glasses.

“Probably…no, even surely, you are talking sense, Hermione. But how…exactly are we going to spot the difference?”

“Oh, you want to know everything all at once! If it wasn’t for laundry I could possibly tell you. For now I can only assume that if we suspect something is a Horcrux, we could, perhaps, use this knowledge to scrutinise this object…or subject. As for the rest, I have no idea – I need to think,” said Hermione, putting her aching head back on the table.

“OK,” Harry said after a short pause, “now, when everyone has spoken out, maybe one of you will finally answer me? Any thoughts about the Pensieve? I think I found a phial with Professor Dumbledore’s memories in the Astronomy Tower. He might have left it there before he died. It may be something important, would be nice to know what exactly, right?”

Ron looked at his friend with great interest and even Hermione raised her head again.

“Harry, were you talking about the Pensieve? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch it. I must have dozed off. Yes, if it really is the memories of Professor Dumbledore, and not some sort of trap, we definitely need to see them!”

“What kind of trap can it be? It’s quite an average looking little bottle.”

“What if it’s a Horcrux?” asked Ron.

“I doubt Vold…”

“Don’t say his name!”

“I doubt he’d hide a fragment of his soul in the Astronomy Tower. You know, I’ve been wondering all morning where this thing could’ve come from. Perhaps Professor Dumbledore dropped something important from his memory in it while I was trying to run from the tower to call... Well, he sent me to get Snape that night. But I didn’t manage to do anything: Malfoy rushed in, followed by Death Eaters, the professor immobilised me and then it all began… It was almost pitch-black there, only the Dark Mark glowed, so I didn’t see him pouring any memories, yet he wouldn’t have had time to tell me anything, but to pour out memories – it’s fast. And, you know, it’s _so_ like Dumbledore: he seemed to know that I would definitely return to where he…died. Maybe that's why he didn’t move from where he stood until... he fell,” Harry finished in a slightly hoarse voice.

“Let me see that phial,” demanded Hermione.

Harry handed her his find under the tablecloth.

“Hmm, I can’t feel any dark magic,” the girl mumbled after some reflection, “though, I’m not an expert.”

“It’s not like we can show it to Snape!” exclaimed Harry, burying the phial hurriedly back into his pocket.

At that moment the teachers entered the Hall, and the number of students was also increasing.

The teachers’ table, like the students themselves, was clearly divided into two flanks on either side of the Headmaster. Amycus and Alecto Carrow sat on one side, and Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout on the other. The rest of the teachers had never eaten in the Great Hall since the beginning of the school year. While the newcomers were taking their seats, and it was still quite noisy in the Hall, the Gryffindorian trio tried to draw up a plan of action.

“Even if this phial is not a fake, but what we think it is,” Ron whispered frantically, “who will give us a Pensieve now? There are only two of them in the country, as I recall: one in the Ministry, as good as in You-Know-Who’s hands, and the other in the headmaster’s office – also not a piece of cake. We have already tried to get there, and what happened? If we break in, we’ll, of course, take everything that we can lift – the sword, the Pensieve, the desk with documents, if you like…”

“Ronald, your sense of humour…” Hermione began, but had to stop abruptly, as Amycus Carrow rose from the teachers’ table.

“A short announcement,” he started in a low, husky voice.

“He’s not resigning the cursed post, is he?” Harry said in disbelief.

“Maybe Snape will finally curse himself on it,” Ron suggested hopefully.

“With the permission of our distinguished Headmaster, I would ask the seven years not to disperse after breakfast,” said the Death Eater in a casual tone. “We’ll start our Dark Arts classes with the acquisition of practical skills here, in the Great Hall. You don’t mind, Headmaster?” he glanced sideways at Snape as if he were asking not for permission to conduct a lesson, but for some special kindness. Snape shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

“Do what you consider is right, Professor Carrow,” he said calmly. “Just make certain the students fully understand the theory, before switching to practice. I would appreciate it if the Great Hall remained in its place for lunch.”

“Thank you, Headmaster,” Carrow responded respectfully and added, addressing the students, “It’s not necessary to return to your dormitories for your books, we won’t be needing them today. You have your magic wands on you, I trust.”

“A practice session? In the first lesson?” Hermione questioned astoundingly.

“At least he won’t ask about kikimoras,” Harry comforted her. “Or did you want it to be like with Umbridge? ‘Rewrite the list of contents from top to bottom three times, and then from bottom to top four times. Class is dismissed. Your homework is to rewrite the list of contents.’”

“No, but…” Hermione’s face, turned to the teachers’ table, was expressing profound concern.

Professor McGonagall leaned towards Snape and was saying something to him, glancing at Carrow every now and then. Obviously about the upcoming lesson. Snape answered her shortly, and the Head of Gryffindor looked away abruptly.

“…but there have been horrible rumours about Carrow’s lessons, although no one has yet studied the Dark Arts within the scale of the Great Hall,” finished Hermione.

“Forget this bloody Carrow, he is an inevitable evil,” Ron brushed them off. “What are we going to do about the Pensieve?”

“It’s not in the headmaster’s office,” Harry whispered quickly, “the cabinet was empty. It used to be either at Professor Dumbledore’s or at Snape’s, when I was studying with that ghoul.”

Harry thought that even now, despite Neville's mask upon him, the slippery eyes of the greasy-haired headmaster never ceased watching him closely, as though he was considering using Legilimency. _Legilimency?_ _On Longbottom?_

“Generally, the Pensieve belongs to the current headmaster,” nodded Ron, “so if it’s not in its place, Snape’s hiding it somewhere. Probably in his private quarters? If he hasn’t given it to…You-Understand-Who yet.”

“I can’t even imagine how we’ll slink into Snape’s,” uttered Hermione, “he lives in the dungeon; we won’t be able to fly in there on a broomstick. Besides, there are such spells on his doors…darker than the night.”

“But you’ll crack them, right?” Harry said hopefully.

“I’ll need time,” sighed Hermione, “and a couple of days without laundry.”

“And if the Pensieve is not there we’ll have to steal the Ministry’s one?” Ron asked doomingly.

“We’ll come to that later,” Harry replied seriously, “but we desperately need to see the memories of Professor Dumbledore…” He stabbed the spoon into his porridge fiercely.

The pale, watery porridge was eaten without any appetite. Meals at Hogwarts had also become disgustingly terrible – the house-elves were complaining that food delivery had deteriorated dramatically. To the outrage of many, for some there was enough food, and for others – not. It wasn’t difficult to guess that those for whom it was enough sat at the Slytherin table. That just happened. The friends didn’t come up with any better ideas during the dull breakfast and decided to continue to reflect after the class. Especially since breakfast was flowing directly into the lesson. Among the students only the last years remained in the Hall at this point, the teachers were also beginning to disperse. Snape took a farewell look at the Great Hall, lifted the candles, now dimmed until the evening, a bit higher with a flick of his wand and slammed shut the patterned bars on the windows. Professor Carrow rose from his seat cheerfully and banged the table with his wand.

“All right then, we can start our lesson.”

Sharply, as if he were afraid, Amycus glanced back at the teacher’s table, where the infuriated Head of Gryffindor, in an unsuccessful attempt to burn Snape’s black robe with a hateful gaze, was leaving after him. However, even if in her animagus form she’d sunk her fangs into the headmaster’s throat, such a spectacular show wouldn’t have distracted their new Dark Arts teacher from his planned entertainment. Harry could tell that by the way the Death Eater bared his pointed shark-like teeth into a grin, looking around the half-empty Hall. Maybe he really had two rows of them – who knows?

His fat fingers, which due to their size seemed to be incapable of action more subtle than the shredding of a pig's carcass with an axe, played with his wand very nimbly and effortlessly.

“Very good, very good,” he croaked, waving his hand.

The door slammed shut with a loud bang, resembling a gunshot, forcing the students to jerk nervously and move closer to each other. Then the barred windows were obscured by an impenetrable darkness. Someone gasped in shock, and Harry felt Hermione, who was standing next to him, squeeze his forearm. Not that in the background of the usual black rain the lack of daylight was striking, but the enchanted ceiling looked really strange now – as if they were all at the bottom of a giant well with the exit being only at the top, where the Dark Mark was curling under the ugly crumpled clouds. However, the sensation disappeared rather quickly – in exactly the one second that it took Professor Carrow to cover the already grim scrap of sky with a black veil.

Was it necessary to remain in the Great Hall only to depict it as a branch of the dungeon? Snape’s pigging mate… The teenagers’ eyes adapted to the candles quite quickly, but the teacher’s logic still wasn’t clear. In those rare occasions when the Great Hall was used for lessons, preference was given to it precisely because of the illumination and its size. Now, however, in the dim light of the trembling candles, the area, crammed with dining tables and benches, was only good for hitting one’s sides on sharp corners and treading on the neighbours’ feet. Though, with another flick of Amycus’ wand, the furniture was solemnly levitated next to the walls, freeing up a lot of space in the middle.

“Looking through your syllabus from the past year, I found out you had already listened to the introduction of the theoretical aspects of Inferi in Professor Snape’s class.”

“Inferi are even worse than kikimoras,” Hermione moaned barely audibly, “Snape only mentioned them briefly... If he asks me…”

“Weasley can professionally distinguish Inferi from ghosts,” Malfoy's voice suddenly interrupted her tale of woe. “He knows that an Inferius rattles bones, and a ghost rattles chains!”

Holy giant squid! The great Draco Malfoy himself, the sole heir of the pure-bloodline of Malfoy, deigned to attend the lesson – hell must’ve just frozen over… How come they never noticed his ugly mug at breakfast? Though, they did have more important things to do than stare at the Slytherin table.

Now the Gryffindors had no choice but to leer at blondie with hatred. During the summer he had become emaciated on the Lord’s slops and now, when he laughed at his own jest, his pale, thin face was unpleasantly twisted. Recolour him in black, and he’d rival Snape himself. The usual Malfoy entourage was already sucking up to its leader – Crabbe and Goyle squinted tensely, trying to get the point of the joke, and Pansy Parkinson giggled and trembled so actively with delight that had she been her named flower, her petals would have fallen off.

“The difference between a ghost and an Inferius is about the same as between Malfoy and the skin of a dead ferret,” Ron spat out through gritted teeth.

“A ghost is the imprint of a departed soul left upon the earth and an Inferius is a dead body that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard's spells,” Harry interrupted him hurriedly, trying to turn an obvious insult of the pureblood into a full answer on the topic of the lesson.

While Malfoy and his gang were fathoming the gist of the metaphor about the ferret, which seemed to have surprised even its creator with its depth, Professor Carrow shook his head irritably and said in a husky voice:

“Enough! I'm glad you are already familiar with the theory, since Professor Snape is so concerned about it. Therefore we can safely switch to practice.”

“Professor, could you make the lights a little bit brighter? I can’t see my book…” – Terry Boot, that's right, who else would bring a book to breakfast if not a Ravenclawian? Without it the porridge would clearly stick in his throat!

“I told you we won’t be needing the books today,” Carrow snapped, not even turning his head toward the speaker. “And this illumination is the most suitable for today’s guests. They don’t like bright lights.”

“Did he call Snape, then?” Ron whispered snarkily in the ear of the blanched Hermione.

The girl, however, didn’t see anything funny in the situation and, judging by her rounded-in-understanding eyes, she sagely preferred Snape as a guest.

“Merlin's beard...” gasped Harry, whose awareness of the oncoming followed Hermione’s.

To the left of the teacher’s table, in the corner opposite the exit, someone began to stir. Or ‘something’ – the question was moot. Harry recognised them at once – thin bony hands, waxy skin covering skulls, shreds of decayed clothing. But surely Carrow couldn’t be crazy enough to drag into class...

“Inferi,” the professor proclaimed so calmly as if he were talking about a colony of flobberworms, “are the theme of our practical lesson today.”

So, he could be…

“Maybe they are boggarts?” Hufflepuffian Hannah Abbott whispered with hope, stepping behind Harry-Neville’s back instinctively. Even Parkinson interrupted her enthusiastic fit and was gazing anxiously from the teacher to Draco, apparently expecting an explanation from the former or a reaction from the latter.

Boggarts? Assuming just one form for all of them? It would be a tempting idea, but an invisible draught had already brought the nauseating smell of decaying flesh to the students. The recently eaten porridge rapidly darted to their throats.

“An Inferius, as Mr Malfoy has rightly pointed out, is a corpse, raised from its grave and controlled by wizard will. Twenty points for Slytherin.”

Mister Malfoy? Blimey! Even Snape, as the benchmark of universal evil, never achieved this level. Ignored Hermione’s raised hand? That’s happened. Held back honestly earned points for Gryffindor?  Every bloody time. But to hand points to Malfoy for Longbottom’s answer? That’s way beyond the pale! However, the question of points alarmed Harry indirectly, rather out of habit, so he chose not to look for trouble and instead concentrated on the worrying upcoming practical.

“Now we’ll divide into two groups. One will control the Inferi, and the other will defend themselves…”

Oh, what a surprise: the group that was supposed to control the dead bodies by accidental coincidence contained just Slytherins. Simple and effective – Snape would strangle himself with envy.

“Memorise it,” Carrow aimed his wand at one of the corpses, who was standing apathetically near the headmaster's seat and even looked a little like Snape, then waved his hand sharply, drawing in the air a semblance of ‘sigma’, “Obsequium moritas!”

The Inferius jerked and straightened, as if someone had pulled invisible strings. Slytherins began to move their lips, repeating the spell to themselves hastily, but preferred to step back.

“The compelled Inferius is not just a servant. It has no fear, no shame, and no will. From the moment you utter the spell, it is in your power. All you have to do is to give it an order…”

“Stand on your head!” Goyle shouted, bursting with laughter.

In the deathlike silence, broken only by the dying chuckles of the joker, Carrow measured him with a scornful look, in which his doubts about Gregory Goyle’s possible future of becoming a Death Eater were clearly seen, given such a dubious gene pool, then he flicked his wand in the direction of a still immobile Inferius – huge and hunched – and spat out just one command:

“Kill.”

For a second the compelled Inferius mulled over the order, then it turned to its master’s target and began to tear off its head, measuredly and lethargically. To the right – to the left, the crunch of the vertebrae, the crackling of the tearing skin, and after a few infinitely long moments, the head was lying on the floor – like a smashed overripe watermelon.

Harry thought he was going to throw up. Maybe it’s a good thing that they had had a frugal breakfast – from such a spectacle anybody could say goodbye to it at any moment. Especially considering that the grey, scabby skin of the Inferi had a very similar colour and consistency to the dried porridge.

“Obsequium moritas!” an inharmonious chorus of orders boomed. The Slytherins, obviously, were also not ready for this ocular demonstration, and exchanged glances, looking for support from each other. The professor, however, nodded approvingly, pleased with their initiative.

“Yes, yes!  Just move your wrist a little more sharply, Mr Zabini… Stretch the ‘е’ a bit longer, Miss Greengrass… Obse-е-е-еquium – like that. OK, now let's partner up…”

“But, sir,” Patil’s twin (Harry, focused on Carrow’s twisted face, didn’t even turn his head to see which one) interrupted him quietly, “you didn’t explain to us what spell we should use to defend ourselves…”

Amycus cast her with such a piercing look, which would be quite suitable for examining those scraps that his compelled Inferius had left from its silent victim, and his swollen face was illuminated by a smile of anticipation:

“You’ve reached your seventh year and haven’t learnt any defensive spells?” he asked sarcastically, and a few Slytherins sneered with approval. “Well, that’s too bad for you.”

And with these words he nodded briefly:

“Do it.”

“Kill!” Goyle yelled almost happily, without even assuming that he didn’t have to repeat the professor’s order, but could give his own, less cruel command.

“Kill!” Crabbe joined in with the same frank enthusiasm of a five-year-old. In other circumstances Harry would, probably, find them highly amusing, but right now there wasn’t anything funny in the silent compelled corpse that was obediently heading towards a pale Hannah Abbott.

“Kill!”

Draco’s voice sounded quite differently – calmer and more conscious, without the idiotic excitement of a Ravenclawian first year falling greedily upon the library. His wand was clearly pointing at Hermione.

And then all hell broke loose.

Harry didn’t quite catch the other Slytherins’ commands; it seemed that someone ordered to pull a patch of hair from the enemy’s scalp, another – just to hit them. Harry’s attention was fully concentrated on three Inferi that were moving towards their targets – Ron, Hermione and Hannah – with the same determination with which their companion had crushed its victim's skull, using only its bare hands, five minutes earlier.

“Stupefy!” Ronald called out first, awakening from a stupor.

The Inferius only gently swayed, but didn’t change its course.

“Impedimenta!” – this time there was no effect at all.

“Tarantallegra!”

“Lokomotor mortis!”

Somebody screamed nearby – their lock of hair had ended up in an Inferius’ hand. Harry grabbed the stunned Hannah by the arm and dragged her to the tables, increasing the distance between them and the corpse hounding her. Ron and Hermione had retreated in that direction a minute earlier and were now climbing up on the benches to aim their spells more accurately. (The last ‘Stupefy’ of Justin Finch-Fletchley knocked out Dean Thomas right before the Inferius attacking him managed to do so.)

“I presume you didn't pay enough attention to Professor Snape,” Carrow commented meanwhile, watching the battle from his lunch seat. Give you some popcorn and cola, you freak? And send you to the back row? To kiss with Dementors…

Harry would never have pegged that in his life there might come a time when he would prefer to be at Snape’s lesson than in any other place. And not for tearing off that bastard’s greasy head, but for actually listening to his lecture. Dammit!

“Spells that affect movement have no impact on the Inferi. Their activity is determined not by the tone of the muscles, but by the will of the master. By the seventh year you should’ve grasped at least that.”

“Snape never said anything about it!” Hermione’s voice sounded a bit muffled as she lost her breath.

Thank Merlin, seditious thoughts about the benefits of Snape's classes turned out to be a delusion! The only useful lesson about the Inferi had been given to Harry by the former headmaster – there, in Voldemort’s cave, surrounded by black viscous water and dark charms.

Fire! It was fire that saved them then! Of course, it was another, more powerful magic that was subjected only to a great wizard such as Dumbledore, but it did implicate fire, which meant its distant, weaker relative could help them right now.

“Incendio!”

The remnants of clothes on the dead body flared, filling the Hall with the smell of burning skin. Harry didn’t know what kind of command the Inferius had been given in regards to him, but the fact that it froze in the centre of the Great Hall, trying to shake off the flames, was quite encouraging. Nevertheless, the mayhem and panic prevailing among the students instantly led to the flaming corpse setting fire to Padma Patil’s cloak, and only Hermione’s well-directed ‘Aguamenti’ prevented the blaze.

“Incendio! Incendio!” resounded from all sides. Everyone was happy to find at least one effective spell, no matter how dangerous it was for them.

Before long the entire Hall was filled with smoke. If the fire spread over the wooden furniture – oak tables and heavy benches... the consequences would be devastating.

“Help me!” a voice full of despair brought Harry out of his reverie, and he rushed back to where Hannah huddled, covering her head with her hands. The bony fingers of the Inferius were already reaching for her.

“Accio torch!” Hermione jumped off the table, catching the heavy flaming torch hurtling towards her mid-flight, and immediately poked it into the corpse. It recoiled from the flames, losing its balance, and collapsed on its back directly under the feet of the second Inferius, whose goal was Ron.

How long can this last? Their opponents knew no fatigue, and the fire restrained them for just a little while. The only example of a fully stopped Inferius was lying on the floor and consisted of so many bits that the Dark Lord himself wouldn’t dare to put this jig-saw together. To create such a mess was, of course, tempting and strategically correct, but Harry couldn’t use a ‘Sectumsempra’. That would perhaps be even more revealing than if he, in Neville's appearance, conjured up a stag Patronus, rubbed his forehead, and, catching a snitch, flew out of the window.

Though, as it turned out, such a possibility was in fact nearly given to Harry… Hermione, preoccupied with pushing off her determined Inferius on the same edge of the table as he, suddenly stared at him with rounded eyes and gasped so panickly, that the young man instinctively glanced back, assuming that such a reaction could only be triggered by the presence of the Dark Lord. However, behind him was just the obscured-with-darkness window without the slightest hint of ‘He-Who-Must…’, but the horror on Hermione’s face was still promising a catastrophe. Waving her wand once again and uttering a tired ‘Incarcerous’, that gave her a break for a few seconds (exactly as long as it took the corpse to rip the ropes binding it), she pulled Harry towards her and whispered in his ear incoherently:

“Quickly! Potion! Scar!”

A second explanation wasn’t necessary. Usually Harry took a dose of the potion right before classes, but today’s breakfast merged into the lesson so promptly and dramatically that he completely forgot about the greenish-brown concoction poured into the phials, and merely worried about the integrity of Neville’s head. Now, that Hermione mentioned it, he actually did notice the outlines of the objects beginning to blur with the return of his own myopia, and his palms were itching from shrinking. By happy coincidence (Thank you, Mione! I will NEVER say again that you’re paranoid!) a little phial with Polyjuice Potion was secreted in the inside pocket of his robe. However, with more than twenty people and a dozen Inferi surrounding him, the conditions were not ideal for casually hitting the bottle.

Harry swore obscenely with an assumption of Merlin’s unconventional orientation and did something that Neville’s Gryffindorian spirit would most likely never forgive him for (if he knew) – he retreated to under the table. Courage is courage, but to swallow the potion in front of everyone’s eyes, standing on the table like on a pedestal, would be pure idiocy; and Gryffindors are taught to tell the former from the latter in their first year.

“It seems the rumours that reached me about Gryffindors’ bravery were highly exaggerated,” Professor Carrow mused, watching in utter amazement how the tall, ungainly ‘Longbottom’, dodging the grasping, scorched hands of the Inferius, dived under the heavy dining table.

Hermione traced her friend's trajectory and exhaled with relief, dreading to think what could have happened if she hadn’t noticed the fatal changes in pseudo-Neville’s appearance in time. However, she was unable to expand on that thought – tenacious bony fingers grabbed her ankle and pulled her down. The girl cried out – at first in surprise, and then in pain – falling from the table she hurt her back badly (luckily not breaking it!) and scraped her elbow all over on the rough surface of the wooden bench. Hitting the floor knocked the air out of her lungs; she coughed, exhausted and confused. Miraculously the wand remained clamped in the palm of her hand, still in one piece! And yet… how long can this battle last? Half an hour, an hour, two? Until someone, this time living, is torn to shreds? If only she had mastered the technique of the talking Patronus she’d now be able to send her silvery otter in search of help. But to whom?.. Well, even to Professor McGonagall – she’d never leave them alone with this maniac Death Eater if she had known what was happening now in the Great Hall. Though, these days the Head of Gryffindor was out of favour with the headmaster and his gang, therefore her intervention could easily backfire on her... There’s plenty of Inferi to go around… How can an already dead creature be killed, really?

Malfoy’s laughter snapped Hermione out of her reflections, which although lasting for merely five seconds contained a whole bunch of philosophical thoughts. To the Slytherite, however, she only managed to tumble off the table with a loud bang. Yeah, hilarious spectacle. Add a couple of broken bones and you’d split your sides laughing!

The girl burst into a rage, just like the rags on the militant corpses were bursting into flames from the well-directed ‘Incendio’, and she, amazed by the simplicity and obviousness of the solution, uttered a common ‘Stupefy’, directing her wand not at the Inferius, for which this spell was nothing more than hot air, but at its master.

The power she put into this magical action was proportional to the hatred that overwhelmed her – Malfoy was thrown a few feet and smashed right into a wall with his aristocratic profile. Apparently, passing out, he lost his connection with the Inferius, because it suddenly froze – thin clawed fingers halfway to Hermione's throat – and then went limp and fell to the floor.

Harry, crawling from under the table – still tall, ungainly and without any hint of a scar, gave an exclamation of joy, but Hermione knew that the last thing she could hope for now was to earn some points for Gryffindor – Amycus Carrow rose from his chair, his already ugly face distorted by almost tangible hatred.

“Mudblood!” he roared, hastily overcoming the distance separating them. “You raised your wand on a pureblood wizard, you wretch!”

“But it’s a lesson, Professor,” Hermione hurriedly got to her feet, not wishing to look up at this bastard, “if we don’t know the means to defeat the Inferius, I decided it was imperative to withdraw its master from the battle.”

“Ennervate!”

A short spell and Draco was already plodding staggeringly towards the professor. The hand clamping his nose was covered with blood.

“She tried to kill me!”

“She did not!” Harry endeavoured to stand up for his friend, but with the first flick of the wand Carrow fenced himself, Malfoy and Hermione in a transparent protective sphere, and with the second he put a ‘Silencio’ on the annoying Gryffindorian. The latter was especially prudent, given the need for continuous attempts to repulse a charge of Inferi. Deprived of his voice Harry had no choice but to flee, in the process (for the second time in the lesson, Merlin’s pants!) regretting the lack of effort he had made on nonverbal spells in Snape’s classes last year. Without his voice he was utterly helpless and his wand, once a serious weapon, now turned into a shameful method of poking someone in the eye.

Feeling the support of the professor, Malfoy carefully showed his bloody palm, thrusting it almost under Hermione's nose:

“See?!”

“See?!” she echoed him, lifting her scraped elbow, which was bleeding less, of course, but had already begun to swell from the blow. Then again, Madam Pomfrey certainly could heal both of these injuries in less than five minutes (it’d be interesting to hear what she would say if she learned students got them in the fight against the Inferi), so in that respect she and Malfoy were equal.

But only in that way.

“Have you forgotten your place, Granger? Should I remind you?! Professor..,” a questioningly- anguished glance in Carrow’s direction.

Hermione almost cursed. Indeed, the professor and Draco’s daddy were licking the feet of the same Lord, practically family!

“The choice of punishment is yours, Mr Malfoy,” Amycus nodded, and his puffy face, disfigured by a smirk, took on the aspect of an overripe pear.

The girl's eyes widened in amazement. Just like that? She looked around, as if wanting to make sure what was happening to her wasn’t a dream. Ron’s ‘Stupefy’ didn’t manage to knock out Goyle, who apparently had a too thick skull, and now her friend was stalling for time with relatively inefficient binding spells, aiming with another ‘Stupefy’ at Theo Nott, whose Inferius didn’t wish to leave the mute Harry alone.

Delirium. She must just be having a fever – September is really cold this year, besides all these incessant rains... That’s right, she’s lying in the Hospital Wing, and the bedside table near her bed is set with boxes of sweets her friends had brought. They, of course, turned up, despite matron’s prohibition, covered by Harry’s invisibility cloak. Yes, that must be it. 'Cause the world in which the teacher gives Malfoy permission to do with her whatever he pleases can’t be real, right?

“You may take the opportunity to practice the control spell,” advised Carrow.

_Control?_ As in to make an Inferius out of her first, and then ‘Obsequium moritas’???

She didn’t even have time to raise her wand for simple shield charms, as Draco shouted readily:

“Imperio!”

He did it quite smoothly and with no hesitation – clearly wasn’t his first time.

… Hermione had always been interested in how the Imperius feels – the scientific vein inside her trembled and vibrated with curiosity. The interest, however, was purely hypothetical. Does someone else's will feel like a foreign incursion?  Is it painful to go against your beliefs under the authority of another wizard? Or is it an incredible joy to fulfil the commands of your master, like a great favour?

None of her assumptions were confirmed.

There was no one else's will. There was only a realisation of necessity.

It is absolutely necessary for her to throw her wand on the floor.

It is absolutely necessary to kneel by the table and hit her head on its edge. Once, twice. It is right. It is necessary. What is Harry screaming in the faraway background? What are the crimson drops slowly flowing down her temple and, hanging on her chin, falling to the floor (they are ticklish and smell of iron)? All of that doesn’t matter.

It’s all a lie – about the subjugation, about the master. She has no master, she wants it herself!

Wants to climb on the table – its surface slightly shattered from the acrobatic etudes which students and Inferi performed on it today, and her still cracked-after-nightly-laundry hands are running into narrow, protruding splinters... That’s alight, the pain will leave as soon as she rises to her feet and yells:

“I’m a filthy little Mudblood!”

 And everything disappears, fading away with a sense of fulfilment of her desire, strong as a stream. Why can’t they understand – she wanted this herself. _Herself!_

“I’m a filthy little Mudblood!”

And then the door swings open, letting in Professor Snape. He stares into the semidarkness with adjusting eyes, spins his untidy-haired head around, as if trying to figure out where to start, and utters a laconic ‘Moritas more’, from which all the Inferi fall to the floor like piles of rags.

And Hermione knows exactly what she must do next. She needs to jump off the table, cross the Hall with broad swift steps, stop in front of the numb headmaster, who frowns, looking down at her, and kiss him… everything is right, it’s as it should be.

How long the kiss lasted Hermione didn’t remember – maybe just a moment, but for some reason it seemed very important to understand what kind of herbs she could taste on his lips. There was a bitter tanacetum and a thin note of mint…

Then the herbs were gone, and after a sharp ‘Finite Incantatem’ the sounds returned. Sunlight flowed into her eyes (when was the veil removed from the windows? Or another question – when did she close her eyes?), the girl blinked and squinted from the unaccustomed brightness.

“No need to wince so much, Miss Granger,” Snape’s sarcastic voice rang out above her, “I am not thrilled either.”

As if emerging from a deep sleep, Hermione gasped, straining for air, and looked around bewilderingly, her heart fluttering in her throat, and the pain pulsing in her temples suddenly tripled.

“Hey, Granger, stop fooling around, I removed the ‘Imperio’ five minutes ago!”

A chorus of Slytherins shrieked with laughter in response to this enchanting joke. Thankfully the others remained silent.

“That was a very impressive demonstration of Imperius, Mr Malfoy,” Snape gave the girl standing in front of him an attentive gaze, pursed his lips, as if the drops of blood on her face were actually flobberworms’ products of life and pulled away so squeamishly, as though he were afraid of getting infected. “Allow me, however, to express the hope that next time you will direct your imagination into a more productive channel.”

“Yes, sir!” Malfoy agreed gladly, inspired, obviously, by the prospect of ‘next time’.

“I can see you have not heeded my request to keep the Great Hall intact, at least until lunchtime,” Snape turned to Carrow, who was all smarmy smiles.

“I’m sure everything will be spic and span here come lunch. Those, who couldn’t handle the Inferi, will take care of that,” he looked around the mute students. “And Granger will come to the D.A.D.A. office at seven o’clock for detention.”

Hermione nodded silently and stepped towards the door. This simple action caused her such a tormenting dizziness that if it wasn’t for Ron, she would have fallen to the floor just like the Inferi.

“Weasley, I haven’t dismissed you yet!”

“Let him go,” the headmaster interrupted him. “Weasley, escort Miss Granger to the Hospital Wing before she falls and soils the floor – it’s time to learn to respect Mr Filch’s work.”

More than anything in the world, Hermione wanted to run out and keep running until the air was gone from her lungs, but she was only strong enough to hang on Ron’s arm and allow him to drag her out of the Great Hall. From behind their backs could be heard muffled whispers:

“Her head is covered in blood all over, did you see?”

“She kissed Snape. That’s awful…”

“I’d throw up…”

“From Snape or from Granger?”

Ron was grinding his teeth, but stayed silent. And for this Hermione was eternally grateful to him…

***

It was almost four in the afternoon, when the Hospital Wing’s door opened slightly, and the ginger fluffy hairball walked majestically towards Hermione’s bed. Ron whisked into the room straight after him and held the door for someone in the invisibility cloak. Half-assed conspirators…

Crookshanks jumped onto his owner’s stomach, purring deeply, and even grunted a little with pleasure, when she ran her fingers through his thick fur. The invisible Harry flopped down on the nearby bed and fidgeted, making some space for Ron, who at this moment was placing a large box of chocolate frogs on Hermione’s bedside table. Should she, at last, open his eyes to the fact she doesn’t like these confections?

“So, how are you?” Harry began diplomatically in a whistling whisper. Yep, remembered, finally, about the tradecraft! A whisper coming from the air is much less suspicious, of course, than normal speech. “Madam Pomfrey patched you up?”

Hermione just nodded, not even turning her head.

Her friends were, apparently, afraid of her hysteria, but noticing her reluctance to talk they cheered up and jabbered in eager rivalry, struggling with their own embarrassment while discussing such a delicate topic:

“Don't worry about it, Hermione, everyone's already forgotten!”

“That ferret will pay for it! We promise you!”

“Ratty little git!”

“And what we’re going to be taught next time – an ‘Avada’?”

“I’ve never been so happy to see Snape… Ouch!” (An invisible elbow punched Ron in his side. Merlin, what can be worse than clumsy diplomacy? Is it assumed that now she will blush with shame and start convulsing at the mere mention of the headmaster? Well, maybe she will, but no need to emphasize that.)

“Come on, Hermione! I doubt that old greasy-haired bat will get back at you – his behaviour is already as bad as it gets.”

“Besides, he should be thanking you – I suppose, it’s been a hundred years since anyone… Ouch!”

“Listen, guys, don’t get me wrong,” her voice was a bit husky from the long silence, “but I have to go to Carrow’s detention at seven… It would be nice to get some sleep…”

“Of course, no problem!” Harry’s unseeable hand grabbed Ron's elbow and pulled him towards the door.

“Ehh, Hermione?” Ron asked, cautiously caressing the bedside table with his eyes.

“Take them, I’m not hungry,” the girl responded readily, and couldn’t hold back her smile as Ronald dashed to the box of sweets with the agility of a chocolate frog.

When the door closed behind her friends, and the clock on the wall began to tick a little louder, as always happens in silence, Hermione laid, exhausted and devastated, for a long time, staring at the ceiling and rubbing the cat's warm mane with her healed fingers.

And for some reason that taste never disappeared from her lips, and falling into a sleep, and emerging from it, she was still trying, somewhere on the very border of her consciousness, to combine mint and tanacetum... But she managed to do it only when Madam Pomfrey brought another cool bottle to her lips, whispering sadly:

“Drink some more painkiller, my dear…”


	5. Chapter 5

Hermione strode to Carrow’s detention, not feeling anything else towards him but anger. She didn’t even feel fear, though, she probably should have. However, she was so fiendishly tired that she was incapable of complex emotions. She wasn’t affected even by the stormy discussions of the morning Dark Arts lesson, which were heard in every corner of the school. As soon as Hermione had managed to leave Madam Pomfrey’s, a terrified Professor McGonagall led the girl into her office and took a long time to regale the best student with strawberry tea and the omnipresent chocolate frogs, glaring anxiously at the remarkably calm Miss Granger. Then the Head of Gryffindor had advised her to go and lie down, and promised to discuss with Carrow his pedagogical methods. Hermione had tried her best to talk her out of it – 'cause what’s the point? Of course, even McGonagall couldn’t abolish another detention, which the outstanding student had received right in the first lesson of the Dark Arts.

Hermione didn’t go into her bedroom – there was no time. Still having an essay to write for tomorrow’s potion class, she endeavoured to at least briefly rough it out before going to Carrow’s. She didn’t go to dinner either; Harry and Ron brought some food to her in the common room. Slughorn wasn’t a monster, but for Hermione it became a matter of principle – since she’s back at Hogwarts, she wouldn’t let the new orders break her and make her quit her studies. Ron and Harry had been exchanging glances with their accustomed amazement. Both of them volunteered to accompany her to the class when the time came to go to Carrow, but on the stairs Hermione expressed a desire to go on further alone – in case that vengeful bastard fancied torturing the boys along with her, for their sympathy to the victim. Her friends promised not to go to bed until she got back. Hermione joked gloomily to prepare a bandage. The second-floor was almost empty, since the lessons were over. Only three twelve-year-old girls were hiding in a window niche near the Dark Arts office. Probably they were also waiting for someone.

With a strong anticipation of something bad coming, Hermione reached her hand out to the doorknob, but the door suddenly flew open by itself, and a Ravenclawian student jumped out into the corridor, bumping into her. Hermione vaguely recognised her – it was the second-year Mary Jane Bishop, Muggle-born, her fellow sufferer in the last two duties in Hogwarts’ laundry room. Recognition was vague only because the girl covered her face with her hands, as if very upset, except Hermione thought she saw through Mary Jane’s fingers oozing not tears but blood. At first Hermione was dumbfounded and lost her power of speech for a second, then she turned to run after Mary Jane, who had already been picked up by her friends springing out from the niche. But Professor Carrow, appearing on the threshold of the classroom, took the girl by her shoulder with an iron grip.

“Let’s go, Mudblood, you’re already late,” he said unkindly.

Hermione tried to object, her eyes were entirely fixed on the girls hastily walking their companion to the stairs. They were crying, very frightened and very quiet, trying to leave the scary place as soon as possible. Hermione was literally pushed into the classroom. She looked around the empty auditorium and sat down at the nearest desk, putting her school bag beside her. In the bag was her unfinished essay. If she were given some kind of long, but not very hard task, she could try to finish her homework at the same time. However, this idea, apparently, was worth instantly forgetting. There was no sign of a prepared activity for her in the class. Instead there was a man in a grey, crumpled robe. He was standing by a window with his back to the entrance. When he turned on the sound of the shuttered door, Hermione felt a chill down her spine. That was Fenrir Greyback, the crazy werewolf of Voldemort. The girl realised that she was in very serious trouble and, just in case, cautiously rose from behind the desk. Only now she noticed a few brown spots on her sweater. Mary Jane was definitely bleeding.

“Hermione, our guest is in a hurry, so let's just cut to the chase,” Professor Carrow began. “You'll take a potion, we'll evaluate its effect, and you can be free.”

Hermione's eyes were quickly darting from the teacher’s face to the dangerous smirk of the werewolf and back. A potion? Evaluate its effect?

“And what kind of potion is it, Professor?” she asked as calmly as possible, figuring out whether she could make it to the door with a single leap. No, Carrow seemed to have locked it.

“That’s none of your business,” Amycus told her. “Petrificus …”

“Expelliarmus!” Hermione prudently jumped aside, snatching out her magic wand.

Carrow was disarmed, but Greyback instantly tensed and sprung from the window to the door with one quick non-human movement. Hermione, however, was no longer by the door. Feeling like she was in a nightmare, the girl dashed to the back wall, leaping over the desks.

“Impedimenta!” she evaded it again.

“Expelliarmus!” the werewolf dived aside, Hermione, meanwhile, climbed up onto a windowsill. And then the lights went out.

Bad. Werewolves can see in the dark, she can’t. Okay, even if he bites her… Well, since it’s not a full moon tonight, it’ll just be a bite.

“Lumos!” the girl, trembling all over, scanned the auditorium with a steady beam of her wand.

Something was stirring among the desks, but where? The room was too big for her to illuminate fully. The werewolf and the dark wizard were definitely able to see her much better.

Maybe she could jump out of the window? No, it's too high up. So, she must make her way to the door. Although with two Death Eaters in the classroom, it’s unlikely she would be able to reach it…

“Alohomora!” her spell pierced the darkness in the direction where the door was approximately located. Hermione really hoped she had made a precise hit. Simultaneously turning off her wand, she bounded to the floor and rushed diagonally to the exit, skirting the tables by memory. Strange – she overcame more than half the distance when her school robe caught in a chair. The chair fell over, drastically reducing Hermione’s speed, and that, actually, saved her life. A gentle-green Avada Kedavra slid right in front of her face in a greedy desire to find a victim and discontentedly shattered against the wall. The voice belonged to Greyback.

“Incarcerous!” and that’s Carrow, finally finding his wand in the bright flash of Avada.

Well, that’s that. Hermione sank to the floor, hitting her knee painfully against the fallen chair. Thin cords bound her as tight as they could. If they don’t kill her right away, what’s next? Force-feed her with some sort of potion? Drag her to the Dark Lord? Will they ask about Harry or just torture her? Hermione would have cried if she hadn’t been in such terror. For now she could only lie there and blink frantically. She should better use Occlumency, just in case. Who knows what these Death Eaters are capable of? In anticipation of a difficult graduation year, she had spent the summer holidays trying to link Potter's fragmentary stories with special literature and learn at least something in this regard. Now there will be an opportunity to test her knowledge. Calm down, Hermione, don’t worry, everything has already happened. Now for you it's better to concentrate and continue to defend yourself with the few ways that are still open to you...

The candles burst back into flame, illuminating the gruesome pictures on the walls, showing all kinds of suffering caused by dark magic. Furious, aglow with battle, the wizards approached the girl.

“Cruc…” but the werewolf, oddly enough, stopped the professor's hand.

“Come to the point, Amycus,” he said hoarsely, breathing like a dog. “My mark is burning, the Lord is calling me, and we have nothing ready yet. You’ve been instructed to check the potion, so check it, quickly.”

Carrow nodded and took from the teacher’s table a small dark glass bottle. The usual school phial – in such were stored all the extracts in the potions laboratory. The wide palms of the werewolf grabbed Hermione’ head, tilting it back sharply. It was impossible to break free, but Hermione clenched her teeth as tightly as possible. What is this potion? What if it makes her tell the truth or open her mind? Amycus uncorked the tight-fitting stopper; a thick, brackish liquid flowed through her teeth. Hermione tried to read at least the inscription on the phial – two little squiggles, the handwriting was absolutely illegible, it was unclear what kind of potion she was given.

“Enough,” decided Greyback. “The last time we gave too much. If it goes up to her face, she won’t be able to speak. The Lord doesn’t need that.” And Carrow carefully, very carefully, closed the tiny bottle.

Hermione lay, sensing the wild beating of her pulse throughout her body. Her magic wand was right under her. If she managed to roll aside only just a little bit, she could pick it up with her hand. But not right now, when they get slightly distracted. Though, the Death Eaters were clearly not going to be distracted anytime soon – they looked at her tensely, without taking their eyes off her, and waited for the potion to work. Greyback was breathing foully and heavily, licking his lips dangerously. From nervousness the perspiration stood on Carrow’s forehead, he hastily wiped his face, but still didn’t avert his gaze from the student. He waited for the effect. As did Hermione. The effect was soon apparent, and Hermione screamed.

“A decent one,” Greyback nodded approvingly, taking the phial from Carrow, who sighed with great relief. Apparently, this was the end of his part of the assignment.

“Told you everything is fine, it’s all about the dose,” he explained gruffly as Fenrir straightened his robe, preparing for disapparition. “It begins with the hands, so you can see immediately what it’s doing to you…”

“To me?” the werewolf shuddered with repulsion.

“To anybody,” Amycus corrected himself, “and then you need to add a little bit, depending on the circumstances.”

Greyback nodded again.

“It looks creepy. I liked Cruciatus more,” he said, looking down at Hermione. “Merlin’s beard, begins with the hands. Clever!”

“Yes, he's quite a genius!” Carrow exhaled rather with horror than with admiration. “There will be an antidote soon, if it’s necessary…”

Fenrir grinned with a wry smile at farewell.

“To the Lord? I don’t think so. He never reverses his decisions.”

“But add only bit by bit, as we’ve done today!” Amycus repeated hurriedly. The question of the experiment seemed to worry him very much.

“The Lord will sort it out,” Greyback told him and disapparated.

All this time Hermione, lying on the floor, continued to scream. In the end more from fear than from pain. The sharp inch long spikes breaking out from under her skin suddenly grew so densely that there was hardly any skin left. At first on her palms, then on her forearms, but, fortunately, that was as far as they went. The torture stopped and the pain didn’t get stronger. But even that was bad enough. What is this abomination?! And what did Carrow mean they have no antidote for it?! At all?! And what should she do then?! Amycus had already lost interest in her and was heading to the door. Her wand was so close to her, but Hermione couldn’t pick it up. Not with spikes or the wand would be ruined. Maybe she could do it with her teeth?

On the threshold Professor Carrow, as if remembering something, silently turned around and waved his hand lazily, cutting the magical bonds on Hermione. Then the door shut behind him, leaving Hermione alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6 will be published November 11.


	6. Chapter 6

Terrible. Terrible night, like all the others this week. This school will carry him to a premature grave. That traitor Dumbledore. He had dragged him into a stupid, dangerous adventure, forced, day after day, to bear the vile and savage Death Eaters alongside him, practically threw him to the Dark Lord’s mercy. He made him close, dangerously close, to the Chosen Boy, forced to teach him, to talk with him. Now it could inconveniently come to light and cost him so much. Though, the boy is gone now. It’s all gone. Before he could peacefully engage in his good old laboratory with his adorable potions, sit with the Headmaster and other House Heads at tea, quietly teach the students the finest ephemeral science – no, not science – _art_ of potions… What is left now? Only horror, this eternal joyless horror. Death Eaters in the day and Dementors at night. The students don’t wish to study at all; most of them never returned to the school. Even his own Slytherins have completely lost their sharpness of mind, refinement, and desire to be the best. Instead they have become uncontrollable, embittered, ready to fly off and commit the most desperate and indigestible vileness at any moment. And in such dark times he should be responsible for all these lost, feral children, whose parents are either in prison or serving the Dark Lord.

Teachers hide in their offices and don’t talk to each other. No one trusts anyone, and especially him. Because he is an outsider, because he’s a Slytherite, because he is a close, very close, acquaintance with “He-Who-Must…” But how is it his fault? That is on Dumbledore, an old fox, the slyest of foxes, arranged for him such a life, and then shuffled off his mortal coil. Left him in complete perplexity under the thickening clouds, under the Dark Mark putting constant pressure on the soul of every sensitive wizard.

A knock at the door... unbearable. Even at night he can get no sleep. It’s this castle. A gloomy, gradually dying castle, which itself never slumbers nor allows others to rest. Yes, yes, wait a second…  Straighten the slipped down nightcap, or it’s pretty hard to see anything. Where did I put my wand – mind is fitful and uneasy… Ahh, there it is… Lumos! Open the door, squint at the torchlight from the corridor. What is it? Why at night? No, no, I wasn’t sleeping anyway. What's the point of falling asleep?

“Excuse me, Professor, I need the keys...”

“Of course, just a moment… Why don’t you cut your own?”

“I don’t have time.”

“Why do I have time for everything?” it’s just from fatigue, it’s a teaching habit. Though, it doesn’t matter.

“Because you are a great wizard. Sorry for disturbing you, Professor…”

Go, go, all of you go…Yes, I’m a great wizard, I do know that. Always these nasty little boys... they are everywhere. The whole castle is packed with the most incorrigible of the most incorrigible. No even the slightest hint of peace. Lie down or stay up? Lie down, perhaps. Though, all the same, it won’t be possible to fall asleep until the rumpus behind the wall stops. Salazar, give me strength! Sleep, sleep… A knock at the door.

Nightcap, wand, Lumos… What?.. Oh, no, wrong door. Oh, don’t knock again! I can hear, can hear. My head is killing me… What time is it now? Unlock the door to the laboratory.

 “I can’t find the eyes of swamp ghouls, where did you put them?”

Eyes of ghouls… Okay, hang on a second…

“I thought you had…” a weak objection.

“They are still rotting through.”

Merlin, why might they be needed in the middle of the night? Can’t imagine. Don’t know. Don’t want to think. Impossible not to give. Maybe he can say he couldn’t find them? What's the point? Doomed:

“Hold on, I’ll kindle the lights...” no, it’s definitely after midnight. Tomorrow he needs to get up so early… or rather today. Why doesn’t anybody sleep in this crazy school? That's why they are so irascible in the daytime…

“No, there’s no need to do it. Lumos…”

And everything is like that – uncomfortable, awkward, annoying. Why so, why without the light, in the dim glow of the wands…look in the middle of the night…for some kind of eyes… Salazar! Here we go, now he is tangled up in his nightshirt, untangled, stubbed his foot against a cauldron.

“Watch your step, Professor.”

It’s you, Professor, watch your step. Not everyone can see in the dark better than during the day. I wonder what kind of potion it is to not sleep at all?

“I'll write you the recipe.”

No, they are not here. And not there either, I assure you! We’ll find them. What’s the hurry?

“They were floating in a green jar…that used to have the gillyweed.”

“Yes, I remember the jar. It’s somewhere here, where else can it be? Well, shine over there, behind that cauldron – I can’t reach it myself. Is it them? What a joy! Also a bit immature…”

“They will do.”

“Sure, those two are almost ready.”

“Yes, I can see.”

Is it all, finally? Good. Of course, no problem. I wasn’t sleeping. Anytime.

“Sorry for disturbing you again, Professor…”

Okay – sleep, sleep, sleep. The laboratory is locked. Should check the external door once again – if a Dementor wanders in at night it won’t be pleasant. Why do his best students grow up as such notorious scoundrels? Cold. The house-elves got lazy and barely see to the fireplaces. Certainly don’t clean the chimneys at all… He’ll have to mention it… The last thing he needs right now is to catch a cold… A knock at the door.

Nightcap, wand, Lumos. Which door was it? Yes, from the corridor. Okay, hang on, I’m coming.

“Sorry for disturbing you, Professor…”

Again his students. Why does everyone here have such bleak, hunted eyes? But now, at least, can I kindle the light?

“Yes, Professor, perhaps you’d better.”

“Well, come in,” the corridor reeks of Dementors. Someone’s patronus is dwindling behind the door.

Have entered. Three from Gryffindor. Classmates of the Chosen Boy. Two young men: one is Weasley, the other – Longbottom, and a girl – a former prefect, a very bright student – Miss Granger. Oh, yes, now she must be called by her first name. Very unusual. The boys are confused and pale, by all appearances haven’t been abed today. The girl is even paler. As she came in, she was immediately seated in a chair. Her hands are wrapped in a sheet; the sheet is covered in blood. Hastily tightening the gown belt:

“Hermione, what happened to you? I think you should visit Madam Pomfrey… should I walk you to her?”

“No, sir,” Longbottom is more serious than ever, “Madam Pomfrey is unlikely to help us.”

Weasley is assisting the girl to unwind her hands.

What is this?! How… Who did this to you?!

“Professor, do you know what this is?” hope mixed with despair in her voice.

Scary even to approach. This school is worse than Azkaban.

“It looks like some kind of dark magic… to be honest… most likely it’s caused by a potion. Very dark magic, forbidden,” (though, now there is no forbidden magic), “have you drunk anything suspicious, Miss Granger?” …called a Mudblood ‘Miss’… Well, never mind, _they_ haven’t heard…

On the girl’s lips appears a strange smile – a true sign of forthcoming hysteria.

“Yes, Professor, I have.”

Ask or not ask? Probably better not. Don’t want to know.

“All right. Wait, let me think what can be done. Do you know anything about that potion? Its name, ingredients?”

“No.”

Okay, apparently there’s no point in locking the laboratory for the night… Going back there. Children are watching him with fascination, without taking their eyes off him. The boys are trying to comfort the girl, but failing miserably. What can he do for her? Why would he know how to treat this abomination?

“Here, drink this. It will stop the pain. You can keep the whole phial. Taking a sip once a day should be enough.”

“Once. A. Day?” Miss Granger’s repeating slowly. “So this can’t be removed?” her lips are already trembling.

“I think they’ll disappear by themselves. This is…” (how can he put this gently – a torture, an excruciation…) “a special spell. The spikes will go away for a while, then appear again,” (more and more often) “the main thing is you shouldn’t feel any pain at this moment. Take a bezoar just in case. Here we go… Miss Granger, I’ll try to come up with something, but it’ll take some time. I can’t find a solution straight away… Perhaps you could appeal to the Headmaster, he… knows more about the application aspects of dark magic. As a matter of fact, I’ve always been interested only in the beauty of the theory. But that's not the point right now…”

All three together:

“No!”

“No, don’t wake up Professor Snape,” Longbottom begged.

“Oh, I'm sure he hasn’t gone to bed yet...”

“Please, Professor Slughorn,” Hermione turns completely white, “don’t even tell the Headmaster that we’ve visited you! If possible, don’t tell anyone. Professor McGonagall will worry about me, but still won’t be able to help. If even you can’t…”

“There, there, you shouldn’t be ashamed. It’s not your fault that you…got sick. But of course I won’t tell anyone, since you ask. Indeed, the usual methods are unlikely to help here.”

Not sure anything at all will help.

The children politely say goodnight, thank him, and head to the door – the boys support the girl. Weasley looks out to check the corridor for Dementors. It’s all clear…

“Thank you, Professor. Sorry for disturbing you, Professor…” the trio melt into the darkness.

Close the door. Bolt it tightly, tightly. His hands are trembling. Go to the laboratory. There, in a locker, was a potion. To see such a thing at night – how can he sleep? A quarter of the phial… no, better a half. Back to bed. It’s freezing. How can it be treated, really? ‘Wiggenweld Potion’? ‘Morta aqua’? Why do his best students..?

Turn to the other side… Again he will have nightmares! Impossible, inconceivable to live like this. Silence, the Dementors sigh in the corridor...

Nightcap, wand, Lumos.

He’s got a few hours before dawn, he’ll make it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7 will be published November 25.


	7. Chapter 7

There was less than five minutes left before the advanced potions lesson, but only a Ravenclawian and a couple of Slytherins were sitting in the classroom so far. Harry poked his head through the door for the fourth time and turned frustratedly to Ron:

“Slughorn’s still not there…”

After a sleepless night both boys were gloomy and concerned; however, the reason was clearly not the unfulfilled homework. They didn’t intend to go to classes at all – the last thing they were able to do at this moment was to sluggishly stir some kind of stinking brew in the cauldrons. Every time they closed their eyes, Hermione, pale as death with wet streaks on her cheeks and a bloody mess instead of hands, burst upon them. Everything was like a nightmare – the night trip to Slughorn, long hours in the Gryffindor common room spent talking in an attempt to distract their friend from her pain, waiting for when the painkiller would start working… And this morning the unfinished potions essay was the least of their worries. They had gone down to the dungeon only to ask the Potions Master whether he had found a solution for Hermione’s problem during the night. But Slughorn wasn’t in the classroom and didn’t open the door of his office. This seemed strange. Being a bit timid by nature, their teacher preferred to spend the time freed from the lessons and meals locked up in his private quarters, in order not to make a nuisance of himself to the Death Eaters. And he always opened his door with great reluctance but readily. Even at night. And now, during the half hour leading up to the class, Ron and Harry couldn’t find him anywhere. But the idea of going back to their tower with no news was unbearable. Hermione, who had gone to her bedroom at first light and hadn’t come down to breakfast, would obviously prefer to receive encouraging tidings instead of a portion of grey watery porridge, which after yesterday’s practical lesson of D.A.D.A. was especially hard to swallow.

“Damn, where the Salazar is he?” Ron hammered at the door of the Potions Master’s office without any tact. Despair, along with a sleepless night, made him even more short-tempered than usual.

“Hey, have you lost your minds breaking in like that?” a familiar voice said, and as if on cue they quickly turned to the approaching Hermione. She was a little paler than usual, but no longer looked like a failed experiment of an Inferius resurrection.

“Hermione!” they exclaimed in chorus, unwittingly dropping their eyes on her palms.

Noticing their impulse, Hermione raised one hand to the level of her eyes and explained:

“Two hours ago they simply disappeared. As if drawn back into the bone.”

The skin on her hands was dotted with a myriad of small white scars, but in comparison to yesterday’s horror it looked almost normal. Ron couldn’t hold back an enthusiastic yell:

“Holy Grindylow! Completely disappeared!”

“Not completely,” the girl grimaced, critically examining her scars, “but, given the speed of healing, I’m hoping these marks will also go sooner or later.”

“Thank Merlin,” Harry exhaled with relief and smiled quite idiotically. For a moment he really felt light and easy, like the weight of the world on his shoulders had disappeared along with Hermione's wounds. This sensation didn’t last long, but gave him the opportunity to breathe deeply for the first time in the last few weeks. How little it takes to be happy – just to return to the status quo. Searching for Horcruxes, the potential confrontation with the Dark Lord – all of that seemed insignificant against the backdrop of the fact that Hermione could again hold her wand in her hands without sobbing in pain.

“We thought about talking to Slughorn and skipping the class,” Ron said hopefully, “but since the circumstances have changed, I suggest forgetting about Slughorn and returning straight to the tower to get some sleep!”

“Are you crazy?” the girl frowned and folded her arms over her chest. “Do you want him to report to Carrow that we missed his lesson without a good reason?”

“He wo-on’t,” Ron stretched the word dubiously.

“Oh, yes, he will! He’s too afraid of the new regime not to provide it with all-round support. And although he is certainly not a maniac like Snape or the Carrows, he’ll betray you first, because of his cowardice, and then will mourn long and bitterly.”

“Hermione’s right,” said Harry. “Though, we haven’t even written half a roll, when he requested two. But lately Slughorn asks only those who raise their hands.”

Ron had no choice but to accept his fate.

“Well, after all, it’s not Snape,” he mumbled. “I would never go to his class with a half of roll...”

“Have you heard about the fifth-year, Stephen O'Leary?” Harry interrupted him. “A Hufflepuffian Muggle-born? The whole school was discussing it at breakfast. Snape put him on detention last night, and this morning Stephen was taken to St. Mungo. They say he had some strange nervous breakdown; he didn’t recognize anybody and almost leapt from the Astronomy Tower. He was taken under ‘Incarcerous’, you know? Snape must have tried out something on him as well… Who knows what else Voldemort might need – maybe a potion that drives you crazy!”

“Or worse,” Ron added, however, realising weakly what exactly he meant.

“Mary Jane Bishop also left – her parents took her home. For family reasons!”

“Yeah, right, for family reasons, which are not related to the fact that the Death Eaters were testing an experimental dark potion on her!”

Hermione shivered, remembering the second-year’s bloody hands pressed to her face. Hopefully, the girl felt better, and the terrible effect was non-permanent. In any case, the Mudbloods were better to stay away from Hogwarts and from magic England entirely – maybe Mary Jane’s parents will be smart enough to vanish into thin air along with their daughter.

“Nevertheless, our ranks are thinning,” she said thoughtfully.

“Whose ranks?” Ron raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“The Mudbloods’.”

“Don’t you dare…” Ron begun, blushing to the roots of his ginger hair, but Hermione shushed at him quite unceremoniously, listening to the voices in the classroom.

“Time to go – everyone is already there.”

Her friend suppressed his righteous indignation and complied, muttering something about the lack of a book and a useless slug.

“Ask the professor to lend you a book,” the girl cut him short, “I think after our night invasion he won’t be surprised that we’re not ready for the lesson.”

There was the usual hubbub in the classroom – all students really were in their places, including Draco Malfoy. He only seemed to visit Potions and D.A.D.A., apparently believing that just these two subjects were truly worthy of a pureblood wizard's attention. Maybe now Voldemort required not only unswerving loyalty to his ideals from his supporters but also a complete education, according to, at least, his own favourite disciplines?

Hermione, as usual, shuffled off towards a back desk. Not that Professor Slughorn hated Mudbloods with every fibre of his being, it’s just these fibres were quaking too much at the thought of disobedience to the new regime. That’s why as soon as the new idiotic anti-Mudbloods’ decree entered into force, their Potion Master snapped into its implementation with a zeal worthy of the faithful supporter of the Dark Lord, along with the repentance of a Hufflepuffian stepping on a kitten’s paw. Tormenting his whole sublime soul, he still put Hermione and Dean at the back row, and then, revelling in his sufferings, did his best not to ask them at all, otherwise he would have to call them by their first names and thereby injure his fragile mental state again. Hermione never resented him for that – after all he was just a frightened man, who, for a change, didn’t want to fight the universal evil, but, again for a change, wasn’t showing any desire to test excruciating potions on her. She cast a brief glance at her injured hands. Of course, the benefits of Slughorn’s potion weren’t great – she’d figure out the necessity of taking a painkiller without him – but at least he had tried… The potential humiliation in the matter of the back desk didn’t upset Hermione (in some classes it was even preferable to stay away from the epicentre). However, in the potions auditorium – dark, without any windows and lit only with a vague number of candles (which, according to Slughorn, was not a consequence of the former dungeon dweller’s vampire identity, but only a precautionary measure: the bright light adversely affected the properties of some potions), it was almost impossible to see the board and the tasks written on it from the back row. Luckily, Slughorn’s classes had a predictable program, and Hermione had the opportunity to explore the lessons’ topics in advance.

Meanwhile Ron was emptying out his school bag in search of a quill (Merlin, it’s one thing he never packs his books in the evenings but the quills as well..?!). Near the desk Harry shifted from one foot to the other quite awkwardly and Neville-like, looking at his friend and waiting for when he had scrambled up the contents of his bag from all the available horizontal surfaces. Hermione breathed a sigh of obvious relief: of course, Potions couldn’t be called a simple subject, but still it meant a couple of hours without a single Death Eater in range – and she had learnt to appreciate such respites…

And then the door leading to the Potion Master’s office burst open and instead of a slightly hunched, stodgy Slughorn, into the classroom entered the headmaster…

No, no, no, he did anything but ‘enter’. He broke into, stormed into, flew into – yes, perhaps, just like that: he flew into the room, surrounded by the fluttering tails of his black robe, not even resembling a bat, a comparison with which was already a hackneyed cliché for a few generations of Hogwarts’ students, but a giant crow, similar to the ones sitting on the Tower walls.

Hermione involuntarily began running scenarios over in her mind – the headmaster’s morning visit, especially in such a hurry, didn’t forebode well. A new policy prohibits Mudbloods from being at any lessons at all? A small morning announcement: Lord Voldemort has acceded to the throne, therefore, anyone with less than two hundred percent of pure blood is ordered to be executed (Mr Malfoy, duck, the rest of you – ‘Avada Kedavra’)? Granger, for your unforgivable escapade in yesterday's class, you deserve an Unforgivable Curse straight in your face? Strange imagination she has after a sleepless night, quite pessimistic…

But Snape surpassed her darkest fantasies – without even bothering to acknowledge the class, he approached the store cupboard in two steps (flaps of his wings?), jerked it open, slid a tenacious look at the assortment of the available ingredients and said curtly:

“Open your books at page one.”

An astonished gasp went through the audience. Ron and Harry exchanged glances and dashed synchronously towards the back row – Hermione could’ve sworn they had apparated. One lightning leap and her friends were already sitting in front of her, humping their shoulders and trying their best to impersonate the furniture.

Despite the menacing notes in Snape's voice, the students seemed to be too shocked to obey his order.

“Are you deaf?”

Merlin, where is Slughorn? What did he do to him?

These questions, apparently, concerned everyone. Harry out of habit opened his mouth and even made a sound, in which, with great determination, one could’ve distinguished as ‘But, sir’, however his suicidal lunge was nipped in the bud with a targeted poke of Hermione’s quill in his back. Had he lost his mind?! Again stepping on the same rake – unlike Neville, Harry's instinct for self-preservation was completely absent!

Although the question wasn’t successful, Snape turned his whole body towards the mysterious, wheezing sound… and froze in stupefied amazement.

The sight of a stunned Snape was, perhaps, almost comical, but Hermione had the strength not to giggle.

“Longbottom?” the headmaster breathed out, with difficulty restraining the need to clutch his chest. “You? At the Advanced Potions class?”

Who would know the amount of effort Augusta Longbottom had to exert so her grandson was allowed to study Potions this year. Professor Slughorn had agreed to let Neville back into his class only because he had no idea about Snape’s pathological hatred of the Threat-to-all-cauldrons, otherwise he would never have risked displeasing the Headmaster. That’s why a test confirming that the boy had been studying hard all summer and had caught up with the material he’d missed in the sixth year, and some tearful persuasions that a future Healer desperately needs his Potions N.E.W.T. were quite enough for Professor Slughorn.

However, since Snape was never notified of any of this, the expression now on the Headmaster’s face could well serve as an illustration for the book ‘ _Magical Medical Emergency_ ’, in the section ‘How to Identify a Stroke’.

The aforementioned Longbottom, slightly hunched, remained silent, not taking his eyes off the cover of the book that he shared with Ron. On the cover a gloomy-looking cauldron was seething with something disgusting similar to the colour of Neville’s missing toad… Harry, Harry, please don’t look up! Even a perfect Polyjuice Potion won’t save you from Snape’s Legilimency! One brief glance and the Boy-Who-Lived will become the Boy-Who-Would-Be-Better-Off-Dead.

Harry seemed to mirror Hermione’s attitude. Tensely snuffling and hiding his eyes behind considerably regrown fringe, he muttered something unintelligible, among which was clearly heard only the word ‘grandmother’.

“Merlin almighty,” Snape groaned, not having received a full answer from the Gryffindorian, “spare me the details. Just tell me – who did you have to kill in order to enrol in the N.E.W.T. Potions class?”

Who did YOU have to kill, Professor, in order to take the Headmaster’s position?

Hermione could’ve sworn that this unspoken thought was in the air, coiling over their heads in intricate rings. She will never doubt Harry again, will never call him an idiot, even if there is a reason – because the feat of silence that he accomplished today, right in front of her eyes, had no price and no statute of limitations.

Malfoy suddenly relieved the tension, interfering into the dialogue with his usual aristocratic arrogance and asking, finally, the question that almost cost Potter his cover.

“Sir, where’s Professor Slughorn?”

Snape grimaced at that name as though he had bitten into an especially acidic lemon, then, leaving Longbottom alone, turned to his precious Slytherite and hissed:

“Wonderful question, Mr Malfoy. I suppose the ex-Head of your House could now be degustating a beer in one of the many Prague drinking establishments, or studying in Australia the impact of a koala’s earwax on a sobering potion… You’re free to continue the list of those entertaining places in which Professor Slughorn may be. All I know for sure – he’s definitely not at today’s seventh-year lesson, and I doubt that we can expect his presence with us in the near future.”

The Slytherins looked at each other dazedly.

“With your Head, Mr Malfoy,” Snape continued, obviously missing an obedient audience during the time he’d been Headmaster, “happened pretty much the same thing that happens with an Acorus’ root when a Woolly Foxglove is added into a potion… Could anybody tell me what happens to the above-mentioned root?”

Silence.

“Miss Granger? I'm astonished that your hand is not trying to break through the ceiling.”

Hermione went numb with amazement, but the desire to give an answer to a teacher’s question, fostered in her over many years of practice, overcame the first shock, and the girl squeaked quietly:

“It disappears, sir.”

“Professor Slughorn disappeared?” Pansy Parkinson gasped, and the flank of Slytherin started whispering heatedly, lost in conjectures.

Snape rolled his eyes, making a rather discouraging conclusion about the level of logical thinking of the students entrusted to him, and explained:

“Your Head has withdrawn himself from the path of magical education, Miss Parkinson. Regrettably I cannot share the details with you, since he has so thoroughly covered up his Apparition’s tracks, that, perhaps, even he no longer knows his own location at this moment. Not that I tried to apprehend him, I simply did not wish to force the laboratory door, and Professor Slughorn took the key with him in a hurry.”

Galloping Gorgons, what news! Was it their night visit that drove the poor man to such a precipitous escape? He seemed to be quite pale even before they came…

“From today the vacant position of Head of Slytherin will be filled by Professor Amycus Carrow, and your teacher for the Advanced Potions classes will be, as you might have already guessed, myself.”

Oh, in the name of Godric’s red pants, why?!

“Have guessed, Mr Weasley, and have opened your books on the said page!.. Mr Weasley? YOUR OWN book!”

“I… forgot it, sir...”

“That’s right,” Snape nodded understandingly and shook his head sympathetically. “I do beg your pardon, I haven’t taken into consideration who I'm dealing with. Before the next lesson I shall remind you with an owl and attach a photograph of the book, making it easier for you to find it. Ten points from Gryffindor.”

With a flick of his wand a thick book whizzed over the Gryffindorian’s left ear and swooped down onto his desk, angrily rustling its pages.

Inspired by this example the students rushed to implement the Professor’s command, filling the room with the sound of crackling paper. Hermione was going to keep her mouth shut, but when it came to studying, her mind always left her, leaving instead only a carnivorously chomping thirst for knowledge.

“Professor,” she couldn’t hold back any more, “but we’ve already reached page thirty!”

“Have you indeed?” Snape's voice oozed with poison. “I'm lost in admiration, Miss Granger. However, you've made no allowance for the fact that since I am in the same room with Mr Longbottom and desperate to live to a ripe old age, I’d rather all of you, without exception, reread the first page that contains… what?”

“The title,” Crabbe boomed, frowning at the cover.

“Safety Regulations,” Hermione said hurriedly, not even having to touch the book to give the answer.

“During my absence you seem to have lost your habit of raising your hand when you wish to respond. Five points from Gryffindor. Who can name at least five rules? I'm not so naive as to believe that in seven years of schooling you could possibly learn them all, even though they are repeated each year. Mr Malfoy?”

Hermione watched gloatingly as the Slytherite winced, looked sideways at his neighbour’s book, and finally replied in desperation:

“No, sir.”

“I can see you also haven’t made the effort to acquire a book. I must say you shouldn’t follow the example of Mr Weasley – if his head, in the future, is to be used only as a target for Bludgers, yours, I dare to hope, will be put to a better use. _No one_ needs an ignoramus, Mr Malfoy.”

The words ‘no one’ were uttered with such pressure that Hermione had no doubts who Snape was talking about. Malfoy, apparently, as well, for he obediently hung down his head and nodded in agreement.

“Mr Boot?”

On the Ravenclawian’s face the desire to quote the rules was mixed with a stupefying fear of Snape. The latter obviously won because the lanky Terry, instead of the usual clear answer worthy of his House, could only mumble:

“If the fire under the cauldron goes out, do not light it again with magic – this will weaken the magical properties of the potion by 10 percent… do not stir potions containing belladonna anticlockwise… do not stir potions which contain ingredients of animal origin with a metal object… do not mix the extract of deadly amanita with the bodily fluids of creatures possessing magic, including wizards and magical animals…”

“What will happen if one does?” Snape interrupted him, ordering Terry to sit down with a wave of his hand. “Longbottom?”

“Ehh?” Harry looked back at Hermione questioningly.

“So, Mr Longbottom, what will happen if you add the blood of your adorable toad into a potion that contains the extract of Amanita Phalloides? Or should I say ‘when’?”

(Actually, sir, nothing will happen, because to take blood from my toad you must first catch it, but since you are asking…)

“Uh, there'll be an explosion, sir...”

“Is that an answer or a warning?”

To the credit of the Headmaster’s sense of humour it should be noted that the response to this innocent question was the harmonious giggling of all Houses – Neville and his dubious talent for destroying cauldrons had long been a well-known Hogwarts’ joke.

“I am glad you all find it amusing,” Snape said in rather sepulchral tone of voice. “Now turn to page 37, the list of ingredients is on the board, take them from the store cupboard and you may proceed.”

While the students briskly stocked themselves with the ingredients, the professor continued:

“Today we’re making a ‘Serpentum universale’, also known – not to you, of course, – as All-Snakes Essence. I would ask you about its properties, but I’m afraid I’ll hear that this potion turns a person into a snake, which my heart won’t be able to bear …”

Hermione suppressed a chuckle. She knew how ‘Serpentum universale’ worked, but she was ready to vouch that Ron and Harry would justify Snape's expectations, and now they were, most likely, looking at each other in shock. The All-Snakes Essence was nothing more than a neutraliser of the poisons of all existing species of snakes.

“Even an idiot first-year could possibly brew it; therefore I dare to hope that at least one of you will be able to achieve a tolerable result. I must especially emphasize that the composition of this potion includes an Amanita… Put the ground hemlock down, Miss Patil, deadly amanita is a mushroom, making it futile to search for it in the herb section… with the letter ‘P’, Mr Weasley, as the main word is ‘Phalloides’… Now, allow me to remind you all, once again, that this potion includes an Amanita Phalloides, and that means what, Mr Malfoy?”

“The bodily fluids of creatures possessing magic cannot be added into this potion!” Draco repeated the rule readily and, of course, immediately earned five points for Slytherin.

“With reference to that, if you feel like shedding a few tears due to the loss of your beloved Professor, I suggest you not to do so over your cauldrons. I highly recommend you take my advice seriously since Hogwarts is already relatively short on students for you to voluntarily reduce their number even more in such a radical way. The same applies to an irresistible desire to spit over your left shoulder and inadvertently send it into your neighbour's cauldron, or to cut the ingredients directly over your cauldron with a very sharp knife. Are you grasping the point, Mr Longbottom?”

“Ehh, yes, sir…”

“I'm flattered.”

Hermione was glad to throw herself into familiar work – she was always excellent at cutting, grinding, squeezing, measuring and stirring. Not that Snape was ever concerned about the level of her professionalism: she knew that Gryffindor didn’t stand a chance of earning any points, but a properly brewed potion at best would save her from a detention with Snape (the story of Stephen O'Leary’s fate was still too fresh in her memory), and at worst it was gratifying to take her mind away from gloomy thoughts, at least temporarily.

This potion contained surprisingly few under-rotten and over-rotten components, and therefore working on it was quite pleasant. The harsh scent of dry herbs suppressed anxiety, the warmth coming from the fire calmed her hands still aching after the night torture. The contents of her cauldron had already taken a canonical claret colour, when, distracted from her meditative thoughts, she was able to look into the cauldrons of the friends sitting in front of her. And was stunned. If Ron’s potion had a very promising salad colour, Harry’s, slowly but steadily, was turning from orange to red. _Red_! At the required claret, real Neville’s potion just had to be blue, green, even black, but not red – Merlin forbid! This was a too serious blow to Longbottom’s reputation!

“Neville,” the girl hissed at the verge of hearing and poked her friend with her stirring stick in his back. “Neville, your portion is becoming the right colour.”

“You think I don’t see that?” Harry turned to her with panic in his eyes. “I’ve already hurled a double dose of Astragalus in my cauldron and, to be sure, put a handful of wild rosemary berries, and they are not even in the recipe!”

“Wild rosemary neutralises Astragalus – where’s your head?!”

“Ten points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger. Have you deliberately seated yourself over there, from where the board is not visible, to prompt Longbottom, or you are hoping to blame your poor-quality potion for mixing up Thelypteris with Phegopteris?”

He was right in one thing – the board was really barely visible, and if Hermione hadn’t read this topic on summer holiday, now she would never decipher the components inscribed by Snape’s pointed handwriting.

“She’s at the back desk because she’s a Mudblood,” Malfoy felt it necessary to enlighten the Headmaster, “and you’re supposed to call her by her first name.”

“Am I?” Snape said imperturbably, folding his arms over his chest. “You see, Mr Malfoy, in the civilised world addressing by a first name implies a very close acquaintance, and I’m not going to denigrate myself with an assumption of being on close terms with a Muggle-born. Therefore, I’d prefer to continue distancing myself from Miss Granger by addressing her with her surname.”

A fair bit of thought, quite impeccable… Though, Hermione no longer cared how they called her, just that they didn’t practice the Unforgivable Curses on her. She drew her attention back to the problem of the wised-up Longbottom – Harry’s potion was about to become inert, and then nothing would ruin it. Damn! She knew that last year’s obsession with the opus of the Half-Blood Prince would lead him to no good.

“Gills! Throw some gills into your cauldron!”

“Twenty points from Gryffindor! Miss Granger! Levitate your belongings to the first row desk! Immediately!”

A Mudblood? To a first desk? You are a rebel, Professor! Hermione, however, was more worried about Pseudo-Neville and his sensational potion. Fortunately, while moving to the front row, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed, with relief, that the contents of his cauldron were beginning to be shot with purple.

“What a phenomenal despicableness, Longbottom,” Snape also appreciated the newly acquired colour, “you’ve really outdone yourself…”

Hermione didn’t listen further. Her potion had reached the phase in which it needed to be stirred fourteen times anticlockwise, and she was muttering to herself the numbers, afraid of losing count. Three, four, five... After all, today’s Potions class was just entertainment in comparison with the previous day, even taking in account Snape… seven, eight, nine... One day, when it’s all over – the search for Horcruxes, war, oppressive fear – she will make potions for herself. In the dark autumn nights she’ll grind dried rowan berries into dust and cut sappy stems of starwort… just for pleasure… eleven, twelve...

…The anaesthetic potion given to her by Professor Slughorn last night must had been very strong indeed, how otherwise could it be explained that she practically felt no pain when the first spike broke through her skin? It was when she mentally said ‘fourteen’ that the pain swept over her like a flame – greedily and rapaciously. But now all she was able to do was helplessly watch a dark-maroon drop falling from the palm of her hand and sinking into the depth of her cauldron.

She knew perfectly well what was going to happen next. Luckily, Snape at this moment was giving Longbottom’s potion hell, which meant there was nobody in front of Hermione, only behind her back.

“Protego!” the girl cried out in a voice changed by agony. Spikes were shredding her hands swiftly and mercilessly, another minute or two and her wand will slip to the floor. But for now she still was capable of aiming a Shield Charm at the trembling cauldron and to hide herself and the whole class, along with the numb Snape, behind the powerful magic field.

Just in time… not in vain was the rule of prohibiting the mixing of amanita with the bodily fluids written in every year book on the first page and, for especially forgetful students, highlighted in bold. Her cauldron crackled at its seams (if it had seams, of course), howled in a thin and drawn way, and then an invisible force threw it up to the ceiling, and that’s where, under the dark smoked arch, it burst in a massive explosion.

Rumbling, dust, yells of frightened students, Snape’s voice bellowing out some kind of spell unknown to her – all faded for Hermione in the face of a blinding wave of pain that flooded her entirely, forcing her to drop her wand and grit her teeth tightly, holding back the scream. No! Please, not again! The hours of her nightmare rose in front of her – every minute of it – reminding, promising, and threatening. She could not bear it one more time… let alone infinite numerous times.

Hermione willed herself to open her eyes. The ceiling above her represented a stone mess, remaining in its place only due to Snape’s most powerful spell. Large stones and fine dust loomed like storm clouds before the downpour. But more importantly, right there, under the former ceiling (or floor – that’s a matter of perspective), hovered the astonished Head of Gryffindor and a couple of horrified first years. The severe bun on Professor McGonagall's head unwound and now swirled around her neck like a snake.

After a few baffling seconds the students came to their senses, grabbed their wands and let fly a whole series of ‘Wingardium leviosa’, allowing Snape to free himself from keeping the uninvited guests under the ceiling and concentrate on their safe landing. As if from a shroud Hermione watched how the bright sunlight penetrated through the gaping hole in the ceiling, making its way through the dusty veil... how Harry and Ron picked up the kids and put them on their feet… how the anxious and trembling Patil-twins ran to the Head of Gryffindor, grasped her hands, repeating again and again on the verge of panic: “Professor, are you okay?”… how McGonagall looked at Snape with unconcealed astonishment and disbelief, and spoke to him with those patronizing, almost warm notes that before the Astronomy Tower had always been in her voice: “Thank you, Severus”… how Snape headed towards her, Hermione, his black eyes shining with danger and anger:

“Have you lost your marbles, Granger?! Did you do that out of spite?! Are you possessed by Potter?!”

The girl remained silent, catching on to his voice as though a lifeline to keep herself from passing out.

“You deliberately ignored the rule that was expounded twice during the lesson! With your Gryffindorian idiocy you endangered the lives of others only to spectacularly demonstrate your protest!!! You will be punished so severely that nobody will ever even _think_ of trifling with me!!!”

Hermione wanted to make an attempt to protect herself from a new detention but couldn’t say anything – the waves of searing pain flooded over her as her hands, covered now with the long sleeves of her robe, once again turned into one massive wound. The students began to flow towards the exit, skirting her and Snape, the professor seemed to dismiss them, but Hermione didn’t hear that.

Harry paused for a moment, coming abreast of her, unable to take his eyes off the bloody drops falling to the floor one by one, then bent down and picked up her wand – its handle also covered in blood. Hermione looked away, feeling like she was about to faint, and only now she noticed that the headmaster’s gaze, sharp as a razor, was sliding over the tips of her tormented fingers which were visible from under her sleeves.

Enjoying it, aren’t you. Were you trying to achieve this effect, Professor?

“You will serve your detentions with me. Every evening. Until I decide otherwise,” he spat out and stormed into the laboratory.

Hermione slowly staggered towards the door. Her possessions, thank Merlin, had already been taken by her friends and she only had to overcome the eight steps separating her from the last student who had slipped into the corridor.

The door slammed shut in front of her nose as if from a sharp gust of wind, but the girl immediately recognized the magic. Looking back she saw that she was alone with the headmaster. Snape came out of the laboratory, clutching a dark blue glass vial in his palm.

No…

“I need you to drink this.”

No. No! NO!

She was not ready for another battle – the pain squeezed all the strength out of her, leaving only a pale shell, only the echo of the Hermione who had fiercely resisted Carrow yesterday. Now she wouldn’t be able to evade even ‘Avada’, except by losing consciousness just in time.

“I said drink it, Miss Granger!”

He loomed over her like a black shadow; the girl managed to gather her last ounce of strength and dashed to the wall.

“No!” she cried out, covering her face with her racked hands. “Don’t make me! Please, don’t make me!”

Tears rained down her cheeks, not of fear but of fatigue, resentment and despair. She could not tolerate it any more – please, not a new torture when the old one hasn’t finished yet. She lied, she’d been too hasty – she truly doesn’t have enough strength! Now, trapped in a vice of pain and horror, she was ready to beg to him.

For a second or two Snape’s eyes burned her like a coal, and then he uttered casually:

“Petrificus totalus.”

Her whole body was paralysed, and only her hot tears continued to flow helplessly down her face. For the first time in her life, from the bottom of her heart, she really, really wanted to die…

Snape approached her closely, raised her chin with his index finger, opened her numb lips and poured a bitter, tart potion into her mouth. Then his thin fingers, covered with a net of small white scars – she knew where he got them from, she knew! – touched her throat and massaged it, forcing her to swallow a hideous thick liquid.

“Finite Incantatem. Your detention will take place at eight.”

Without even looking at her, the professor crossed the auditorium; and the door closed with a deafening crash behind him.

Hermione couldn’t say a word; the wave of pain receded, throwing her onto a stony shore – helpless, weakened, and gulping for air with a dry mouth. She barely managed to collapse on a chair beside someone’s desk, crumpled from the explosion, hiding her face in her bloody palms. She knew for sure: unlike the night remission this one was real and forever… The fire, deeply hidden in her hands, had only quieted down before, this time it was extinguished for good. And now, sitting in the ruined classroom with a hole instead of a ceiling, smeared with her own blood, she realised she was crying with happiness.


	8. Chapter 8

Equipping Hermione for her evening descent into Hogwarts' dungeon was personally handled by Harry Potter, therefore she was calm. According to Harry, in such dangerous ventures anything could have happened even in the old days, and now… better not to think about it. So Hermione didn’t, totally relying on her friend who had an unrivalled experience in this respect. Only the most drowsy and apathetic ghost in the castle didn’t know that most of Snape’s ( _Professor_ Snape’s, Potter!) detentions were given to Harry. He got them easily and casually, and almost with the same inevitability as a snitch. On this subject jokes were invented in Slytherin, legends in Gryffindor, horror stories in Hufflepuff and scientific theories in Ravenclaw. Potter seemed to know everything about the standard arsenal of harassment – from scrubbing the cauldrons, clearing out manual files, to scraping the floor and the desks from unsuccessfully brewed potions…

At the twenty-second item even the conscientious Hermione stopped writing them down. All the same, it was impossible to find ways to deal with all the fruits of Professor Snape’s devilish ingenuity, and to guess what he would come up with this time. The image of Stephen O'Leary rose persistently in front of her eyes, but Hermione tossed it away. After all, she had seen so much in her life, especially this week, that it wouldn't be easy to drive her crazy.

She thought she would feel even calmer if Ron stopped cheering her up incessantly, while looking at her as if at a condemned person, and Harry no longer told her chillers about their headmaster. Snape was perfectly capable of putting chills up anyone’s spine himself. Although, to Hermione’s shame, she knew only a little about it, less than all the others in the school. Nobody would say that Miss Granger was one of the professor’s favourite students – she didn’t belong to the Malfoy family – but she was a good student, and, as Ron had always warned her, this finally did her more harm than good.

Until now Hermione managed to avoid detentions in the dungeon, moreover, even in the lessons the worst that Snape did to her was taking points for prompting, not giving them for her correct answers, and ignoring her raised hand during the whole class. And about the little soul-sharing session that he held with the Boy-Who-Lived, after which Potter ran as far away as possible and then hid himself and stuttered for a long time, she knew only from Harry. In fact, all the additional information about the enemy she learnt from Harry, and practically didn’t have any personal experience of communication with Snape. Apart from the lessons, when she stubbornly insisted on giving an answer, but was firmly cut down; random encounters at the evening patrolling duties (“Don’t forget to check the corridor in front of the library, Miss Granger, in case I missed something”); and annoying clashes in the wrong place with a wrong thing in their hands after midnight, when Ron and her remained silent because Potter and Snape were usually yelling at each other so relentlessly that nobody else had a chance to get in a word.

However, despite her sheer lack of experience, Hermione was now a knowing old bird and no longer trusted the innocent word ‘detention’. She categorically removed all her parchments and school books from her bag and instead, as Harry had advised her, loaded it with a handbook on defensive spells, a bezoar, Slughorn’s phial of painkiller drops, an ever-sharp quill, a couple of large sandwiches and Harry’s invisibility cloak. Since it had always been devilishly freezing in the dungeon, especially in dank weather which was now every day, the girl dressed up respectively: thick tights, heavy jeans, warm polo-neck sweater and sneakers (their laces tied with a double-knot and tucked inside). No more robes and heels – she couldn’t afford even one unsuccessful attempt to dodge an ‘Avada Kedavra’. Though Hermione was actually rather interested in what ingenious ideas will come to Snape’s fertile imagination. How many surprises for the students were left in the Death Eaters’ arsenal? But interest was purely theoretical. When, at exactly eight o’clock, Miss Granger knocked at Professor Slughorn’s former office, now re-occupied by Snape, the last thing she wanted was to be a guinea pig for testing potions or a target for practising offensive spells.

Severus Snape, however, had no need to brush up on his Potions or combat magic. Unexpectedly approaching the girl from behind, he greeted her with a sour look on his face, told her he had a lot of work related to his moving, and commanded her to follow him to the laboratory. When they reached it, Hermione had almost recovered from his sudden appearance. She had expected the office door to open, but the professor had sneaked up on her, emerging from the classroom. The reason for such a manoeuvre was revealed quite soon. Only the class and the laboratory attached to it were at the disposal of Miss Granger. The teacher’s office was tightly locked with a key and a couple of powerful spells. Hermione’s task became more complicated.

With her usual sensible habit of looking for the pros inside the cons, the girl hoped to turn her obviously dangerous detention with the headmaster to the advantage of their cause. To learn something about Snape’s dark activities and somehow prevent them (within the last program of the D.A.), as well as search for the Pensieve in order to see the memories that Harry had found. Of course, it was difficult to do all these things in one evening, but when would there be a second chance? Maybe Snape will get so fed up with her tonight that he won’t put her in detention tomorrow. Hermione understood that she should try her best so he would, but she wasn’t confident (a rare case) in her strength. As soon as Snape opened the laboratory door the girl’s heart sank: an utter shambles predominated in there, the Pensieve wasn’t anywhere to be seen and it was generally difficult to say what was sitting where. At this rate, she won’t be able to find even ordinary stuff, let alone anything suspicious. Most likely the terrible secrets, if they did exist, were hidden further – in the depth of the Potions Master’s office or in his private quarters, but how could she slip in there? Right now Hermione didn’t even know where to put her foot to enter the laboratory.

“The order established here by Professor Slughorn is not entirely convenient for me,” the headmaster clarified from behind her back. “I’ve already started some permutations and I hope you will finish them today, so I can work normally. The principle is simple,” he raised his wand and drew it along the cabinets that occupied the laboratory walls. “All the ingredients you see in front of you should be put on the shelves in alphabetical order. I will be especially grateful to you, Miss Granger, if at the same time you separate all the liquids on the shelves, let’s say, to the left and everything solid to the right. I’m not expecting from you a more nuanced analysis of magical substances.”

Hermione nodded, watching as the new tags with letters appeared on the shelves, obeying the professor’s wand. Whatever keeps him happy! He could have arranged all the pots and jars by means of magic but preferred to occupy her until the morning with a pointless waste of time and energy. Then so be it. For the time being Hermione saw no pitfalls – of course to arrange everything in its place was long and tedious, but… where’s her humiliation in that? In the old days it would probably upset her – she, Hermione Granger, was, for some reason, put on detention, plus on such a mundane and protracted one, but now the girl just shrugged her shoulders.

“Yes, sir.”

All the better that sorting out the ingredients will take her ages – more time to keep an eye on Snape. Besides, if he has to step out for a while she might get a chance to break into his office.

“Can you see that table?” with a fresh wave of his wand the headmaster cleared a small horizontal surface in the western corner of the rubbish, and Hermione saw that there really was a table. “You can make yourself at home there – put a Gryffindor flag, a picture of Potter – whatever you wish… Where is he, by the way?”

Hermione shuddered and emerged from her trance. What the hell are these shoddy provocations between two serious wizards for?

“What, Professor?” she asked perplexedly, and almost immediately sensed a tenacious and quite strong thrust on her consciousness. Without pronouncing a spell or performing a wand movement… What a bastard!

“Not ‘what’ but ‘who’, Miss Granger. As far as I remember, your friend Potter is still an animate object.”

Had she thought anything about Harry or not? No, she seemed to be sincerely focused on sorting the ingredients and hadn’t switched in time. An invisible magical lasso continued to twine around her mind viciously, increasing the pressure. The girl unwittingly backed away, especially since the headmaster looked at her in a quite unkind way. Hard to believe that less than a year ago it was forbidden to use Legilimency on the students.

“Everybody knows it, Professor,” Hermione begun cautiously, “Harry is under the protection of the Order of the Phoenix. However, even if I took Veritaserum, I couldn’t tell you more. Harry doesn’t tell me anything on purpose. It’s highly unreliable to entrust your secrets to your friends, you know? Remember how terribly it went with Pettigrew?”

Perhaps she shouldn’t have said the last sentence.

But the extraneous will retreated abruptly, releasing her consciousness. Snape stopped piercing her with his gaze, walked away into the classroom’s depths and settled himself behind the teacher’s desk. Hermione took a deep breath. That’s it, from now on she’s going to maintain her mental defence until she leaves the dungeon.

“So, you do know something of protective magic, Miss Granger? Maybe you carry your wand with you as well?” the headmaster asked her in a casual tone of voice.

Well, if Occlumency is _something_ … Hermione’s face flushed with a sudden heat, as often happened in the lessons when she had made progress which his Slytherins couldn’t even dream of, but he never gave her any type of credit for it. Snape, even now, was looking at her without any interest, as if he were solving an equation with a long-known answer. Hermione was almost pleased to get an opportunity to lower her face while pulling her magic wand out of the bag hanging over her shoulder. Of course, if anyone doesn’t know anything about magic, it must be her...

“And what if I do this?” the professor finally deigned to use his wand.

Hermione felt as if she had been electrocuted, and in the next moment she realised she was lying on the floor. The pain disappeared, but her own magic wand had slipped out of her hand. Perhaps she should tie it to her arm before the detentions.

Professor Snape sat in his chair, resting his chin on his palm, and looked at her thoughtfully, running his finger over his contemptuously pursed lips.

“Pretty bad,” he said at last, “in fact, it couldn’t have been worse.”

Oh, boy! Here we go… And what about cleaning the laboratory?

Hermione blinked tears from her eyes and sat up cautiously, although she wasn’t sure if it was worth it.

“Sir, but I already said… I really don’t know where Harry is. However, I think that when he appears…”

Professor Snape brushed her off irritably and abruptly rose from his seat.

“When he appears, Miss Granger, he will demonstrate even less impressive results, as I understand. As far as I remember, this school considers you to be its best student.”

Hermione wrinkled her forehead, trying to figure out what he was driving at and to retain the defensive barrier in her mind. Though, there was no new attempt on her consciousness. Very carefully (what was she losing after all?) the girl reached her hand out, picking up her dropped wand. Snape carefully followed her movement but didn’t interfere.

“And what do you need your magic wand for, Miss Granger?” he asked mockingly. “If you have finally remembered some shield charms, for your information, you were killed a few minutes ago.”

So nice to hear that from the teacher! Hermione was practically shaking with indignation, but she knew she’d better not cross the headmaster. Nobody. Ever. Had. Better. Cross. Snape.

“I know the protective charms, Professor. I'm just not used to being attacked by my teachers,” she uttered quietly.

The headmaster looked at her with his usual expression, which meant – you are an idiot, and no magic can fix that.

“The protective charms are called ‘protective’ for a reason, Miss Granger,” he said in a professionally trained voice. “You have to be able to use them regardless of who attacks you and when. Even if you can’t see your opponent.”

Hermione thought of an answer, but only came up with “Yes, sir.”

“What ‘yes, sir’?” Snape mimicked her with annoyance, circling her.

That’s bad – that meant she had made him angry. He always began to circle around the room when something put him out of temper. Well, not exactly a rare case. Now he will yell at her and throw her out the door, and then like hell she’s going to find the Pensieve. She’s failed her task, completely failed. She had a chance, and she screwed it up. Let down Dumbledore’s Army, let down Harry. Surrendered without a fight, indeed. Maybe she should cast a ‘Stupefy’ on him to convince him in the appropriateness of detention for her? What does he want, really? But Hermione hesitated. She wasn’t sure that to stupefy the headmaster of Hogwarts was a very wise decision. Besides, she knew almost certainly that Professor Snape would easily repulse her attack.

“If you truly understand what I’m talking about,” there was an irritation in Snape's voice, but a restrained one for the time being, “explain to me, for example, why you maimed Mr Malfoy with a ‘Stupefy’ yesterday? It’s not a great achievement to know this spell even in the first year. Especially since you were given the task of defeating the Inferi. Don’t you know that outside the classroom a master of an Inferius, as a rule, doesn’t show themselves? Or can’t you distinguish an Inferius from your classmate?”

One, two, three… Hermione squeezed her wand so hard that the pattern of its handle imprinted on her palm. She just had to sit and be silent, wait until he finished his unplanned rebuke.

“The teachers and your beloved books won’t always be around, Miss Granger,” the professor continued dully. “It is a bit troublesome for me personally to put you in order after another educational failure.”

Four, five, six… She must say something at least.

“Sir, I wasn’t aware that I was giving you so much trouble,” mumbled Hermione, “I had no idea that you paid so much attention to my academic achievements…”

The professor finally stopped and looked at her gloomily.

“The responsibilities of the Hogwarts’ headmaster include monitoring the attainment rates of the students, especially in their final year,” he explained kindly, “and it’s next to impossible not to pay special attention to you personally. You’re either throwing yourself at me in the Great Hall, or blowing the entire class to smithereens in my lesson… while doing so you either have your head pummelled or your hands pierced. I’m just wondering what you were doing in my classes for the whole of last year? Protective magic, for your information, was created to shield oneself from the effects of malevolent spells. There are not so many of them, by the way. Fortunately, an ‘Avada Kedavra’ has never struck you. What other similar spells do we know?”

The headmaster looked at her, patiently waiting for an answer. Only the sound of water, dripping from the mouth of the stone gargoyle in the corner of the classroom, broke the silence. Seven, eight, nine... Just don’t snap at him, Hermione, it’s pointless; he can do it as well.

“You mean only attacking spells, Professor, or forbidden as well?” the girl asked politely, still not understanding what this first year examination was for. “If the latter, there are also ‘Crucio’ and ‘Imperius’… ‘Sectumsempra’ could possibly be among them… I guess…”

“You cannot resist ‘Crucio’ or ‘Imperius’. Neither ‘Sectumsempra’, no doubt,” the headmaster said without changing the expression on his face, “сontinue! What did Carrow use against you? ‘Stupefy’?”

“‘Incarcerous’,” Hermione sighed heavily.

“And even ‘Incarcerous’. All these spells don’t appear to trigger any defensive reaction from you, and it’s perplexing. Do you like their effects?”

Ten… Patience and patience alone.

Hermione shook her head silently.

“If even you acquire only a passing knowledge in the lessons, then what about the rest of the students? And with such mastery you are planning to defeat the greatest of the dark wizards ever born? Or you are not anymore?” now he was openly mocking her, that Death Eater.

Hermione squeezed her wand with both hands now, risking breaking it in half. She gazed at the headmaster with seething hatred. And where’s the joy for him to deride her, doesn’t he mind wasting time on this stupid spectacle? A traitor and a murderer. Harry’s right – he’s not human, he’s a monster. And a very dangerous one. An extremely good wizard, and an equally huge bastard.

Professor Snape glimpsed at her and instantly lost interest.

“And what next? Are you intending to repose there for the rest of the evening?” he asked crossly. “I believe I requested you to sit behind the table, not on the floor in the middle of the classroom.”

Without saying a word Hermione got to her feet and trudged back into the laboratory. Nothing was surprising any more. Thank Merlin, the stern reprimand about her declining academic achievements had come to an end. Never mind. She’s had worse. But less frequently.

“Tonight you are going to need this table for updating the tags,” the professor clarified patiently when they finally reached the farthest corner of the laboratory. “I wish the vessels with the same components to not only be appropriately labelled – that was done without you – but also numbered. And not how Professor Slughorn had it – in sequence, but with a letter designation as well. If there are two jars with dragon blood, they should be labelled as ten ‘A’ and ten ‘B’. ‘Ten’ was an example.”

“Yes, sir.”

Well, of course, she’s a complete idiot! _‘Ten was an example’!_ Hermione had to remind herself that she was an infiltrator behind enemy lines and she came here to extract the Pensieve, therefore she shouldn’t snap at the Headmaster of Hogwarts over nothing. ‘Yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir’ will do just fine. Simple and beyond hyper-criticism. But what’s true is true, conduction of physical inventories must be done manually – no wand could implement Snape’s wishes…

The professor’s black robe slipped behind the door to the inaccessible office, and Hermione exhaustingly collapsed onto a chair. Now she finally understood what Harry had been talking about. Fifteen minutes at most had passed from three hours of her detention, and she was already on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She wanted to cry and to sleep at the same time, and her head felt like an anvil had been dropped on it. It was necessary, however, to start sorting the ingredients. She had endured all these sufferings not to be kicked out of here. Okay, just another couple of minutes… Hermione didn’t notice that she remained sitting on the chair, staring at the wall in shock, digesting the eloquent start of her detention.

“An excellent way to fulfil my assignment,” Snape cooed over her, manifesting silently as usual. “Take this,” a thin black leather book was placed on the dusty table in front of the girl, “it explains how to fight the Inferi. Learn it by tomorrow and return the book to me. Don’t underline anything and don’t bend the pages.”

Great! It’s already almost tomorrow!

“‘Moritas more’ – I remember,” Hermione said automatically. And then wished she hadn’t. Snape smiled quite maliciously.

“All that remains now is to wave your wand, isn’t it, Miss Know-it-all?” he uttered in a hatefully mocking tone, lowering his pale face right to Hermione’s confused eyes. “‘Moritas more’ is very dark magic. Mastering this spell requires long and unpleasant preparation. To revive something dead, not endowing it with a soul and mind, is relatively easy. Although this too is dark magic. To kill what is already dead, to make sure that nobody will ever be able to control the corpse, is much more difficult. You can take my word for it. Therefore learn it. Attentively,” he pushed the book closer to Hermione.

The girl moved away as far as she could within the confines of the chair, looking with disgust at the black letterless cover.

“Thank you, sir, but... I’d rather not study dark magic. Especially, very dark.”

For a couple of seconds the headmaster looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face, then his smile became even more poisoned.

“To. Study. Dark. Magic. _You?_ ” he asked and continued, deliberately stretching the words. “You are unable to study it. The meaningless pulling of the Inferi-marionette strings that your friends,” Hermione winced, “performed yesterday, I wouldn’t call studying. It will be enough if you finally learn, at least in very general terms, to protect yourself from the effects of the Dark Arts. Because, Miss Granger...” Snape lowered his voice, as if he intended to tell her a secret, “there are wizards who, unlike you, have an understanding in them. And they know Fiendfyre, oddly enough, is just borderline magic. The real darkness cannot be destroyed with anything less powerful. Professor Dumbledore mastered this spell very well, if it makes you feel any better.”

Hermione blinked. She especially liked the casual mention of the previous headmaster – as if he were safely enjoying his merited retirement or, at the very least, had peacefully passed away in his bed.

“I… heard about Fiendfyre, sir,” the girl managed to say with a great effort, “but I thought only a very powerful and skilled wizard can subdue it…”

Snape’s mouth twisted into a wry grin.

“So go ahead, Miss Granger. Only without self-training, for now,” he quickly stepped back from her, returning to his office. “I don’t want you to burn Hogwarts down, since you couldn’t blow it up.”

“Thank you… Professor,” Hermione shouted after a moment of hesitation, but the door was already slammed shut.

What was all that about?

Hermione tarried in indecision, but quite soon reached out for the educational aid offered by the headmaster – her curiosity had won. The book seemed to lie quietly – it didn’t bite and it didn’t spit with poison. After the raids into the Restricted Section she was almost ready for anything. Hermione felt the presence of protective charms on the book, but they had been securely suppressed. The first thing that caught her eye was the familiar scrolls in the calligraphic inscription on the front flyleaf. In the hand of the ingloriously escaped Professor Slughorn there was written: ‘To the best of my students with the wish of prudence’ and just below sat his complex hieroglyphical signature. Strange kind of wish...

Hermione shrugged. Slughorn, actually, liked such things, although after the return of Voldemort he preferred to give only entirely harmless prizes. She, for example, possessed half a dozen speaking Esteem Certificates, a badge stating Honour Student of Potions (Snape would be green, though there's no way of knowing that he hadn’t been given such a badge too), a couple of magic wand stands and his, Slughorn’s, textbook for sixth-years published approximately when the current headmaster was studying it. The book in the black leather cover was much older. Cautiously turning over a few pages, Hermione found out that it was handwritten, and, according to the styles, by three different people. A real pleasure to study such a book. Pictures and diagrams describing the invisible magical streams that controlled the movement of a bewitched flame didn’t promise her an easy life. In short, it meant another sleepless night. Unfortunately, Hermione hadn’t had a proper sleep for such a long time that she was now practically falling off her chair. And she had to clean the laboratory as well… The girl sighed heavily and, putting the book aside with regret, set to work. Half past eight in the evening – the night is still young, actually. Okay, what do we have here? Oh, boy, we have the whole of everything… squared.

She didn’t make note of the time, but she had definitely been working for more than an hour. Professor Snape hadn’t come out of his office and hadn’t shown any signs of life at all. Hermione even opened the door to the corridor in order to hear, or to see, if he had gone somewhere, but everything was quiet. Monotonously wiping the shelves, placing on them dried, conserved in formaldehyde, or squealing abominations, Hermione didn’t forget to keep an eye on the exit.

Climbed the ladder up to the ceiling, looked back, wiped a jar, looked back, stuck a new tag, looked back, caught a… what’s this devil’s name, put it back into its cage, sucked her bitten finger, looked back. Approached the office door, listened. It’s quiet, but he’s still there, no doubt. Will he sleep in the dungeon then? By all appearances, Snape has really decided to return to his former quarters. Felt uncomfortable in the rooms of Professor Dumbledore whom he had killed? Giving up the hope the headmaster will leave his office tonight, Hermione sat down to categorize the first rack.

It was almost impossible to work while sitting. She constantly rubbed her eyes, pinched herself, and slapped her cheeks, but still kept falling asleep. She wouldn’t mind dozing off in this creepy, icy dungeon, even cuddling the professor – she really didn’t care anymore. And totally didn’t want to think about the extra homework of studying Fiendfyre until the morning. She tried to line up the accounting log in parallel with reading Snape’s additional literature, but it didn’t go well. Her thoughts were all jumbled together. The ever-sharp quill, guided by her wand, called the columns of the log with words from the gift ‘to the best student’. Her eyes slipped from the same line for the tenth time. ‘The curse of Fiendfyre is one of the most complex in Advanced Magic, it requires a great concentration of will and substantial internal strength from a wizard…’ Hermione felt like a bewitched flame was dancing in front of her eyes and buzzing in her ears. That’s the last straw. Use Avada, use Kedavra… nothing mattered to her at this point.

Hermione dropped her head onto her arms. The Dark Lord himself wouldn’t be able to force her to open her eyelids now. Fiendfyre continued to thrash about before her eyes, but in a dream. Out of the flames appeared alternately the immobilized Muggle-child sitting in the cage with an ‘Incendio’ seeping over him, the Dementors, surrounded by hot steam from the laundry, the charred Inferi, a chuckling Draco Malfoy, directing his wand at her against the backdrop of the inferno in the Great Hall, the green flare of Avada Kedavra, flying through the darkness...

“Miss Granger, wake up. Voldemort won!”

Hermione squealed and opened her eyes.

“I repeat,” Professor Snape said, “Miss Granger, bring me some roots of this plant from Madam Sprout. Ten samples. I wrote it down for you… ‘Pulmonaria obscura Du mort’. Make sure you’ve got the right one.”

Hermione stared at the headmaster with horror for a couple of seconds, then for a few more, with confusion, at the sheet of paper stretched out to her. To bring lungwort’s roots? Phew, what a peculiar dream she had! The girl quickly ran her hand over her eyes.

“Yes, sir, right away…” it didn’t even occur to her that looking for Madame Sprout to go to the greenhouses together at such a time was slightly abnormal. She couldn’t argue with the headmaster, could she?!

Hermione was more concerned by the question of how to take her bag with her. She didn’t intend to leave all her tools at Snape’s mercy, but understood that carrying it around wherever she went can be suspicious. Having no other option, she placed the strap of the bag over her shoulder as a matter of course and slipped sideways towards the door. By inertia Hermione ran almost to the stairs – Snape's orders always had a great motivating force. But at the sight of the stairs the girl stopped abruptly. She wasn’t really going to leave the dungeon right now, was she? After all her main goal was not a voyage into a greenhouse. She turned sharply and hurried back. If only the professor hadn’t returned to his office just yet, maybe… could she… really be that lucky on the very first day? Her heart was beating like crazy. To deceive Severus Snape, and now the headmaster of Hogwarts and the Dark Lord’s favourite servant in one person, wasn’t the safest thing to do. But it’s okay, she’s got all the necessary equipment with her. And, according to Professor Dumbledore, no Dark Magic could see through such a disguise. She just needs to be extremely careful.

Cautiously looking around (the greenish glow of the dungeon awakened suspiciousness), Hermione sat down on the floor, with difficulty peeled off the trainers tightly attached to her feet, thrust them into her bag, and pulled the invisibility cloak out of it. Next she put the bag over her head, around her neck, so it wasn’t in the way, and donned the cloak on top. Tucked her hair in, checked the hood – if it slid off, everything was lost. Wand in hand. Okay, here she goes.

In some aspects she was lucky straight away – the doors to the classroom and laboratory remained open after she had shot out of them a minute ago. And Professor Snape hadn’t returned to his office so far. It would be nice if he went back in there before her absence begun to seem suspiciously long. Or, at least, went out for a minute so she could check what spells he uses to lock his office. Just in case, Hermione, holding her breath, carefully crept closer to the desired door. Thanks to her efforts, the laboratory now had a floor and it was possible to tiptoe across it without making a noise. The main point was not to step on shards of glass – who knew what had been contained in those vials. Hermione wasn’t a novice in moving under the invisibility cloak, she used to do it with Harry and Ron. It was one thing, however, to skulk along the school corridor, fearing a hypothetical bumping into Filch, and another – to sneak into Snape’s office in his presence. Though, in his absence, she had done it back in the second year. Of course, his doors hadn’t been so tightly covered with spells then. The tasks have grown more and more unfeasible over the years.

At this moment the headmaster, fortunately, stood at the other end of the laboratory and didn’t pose a threat to her. But he didn’t stay there for long. He looked across the rack from ‘A’ to ‘E’ already completed by Hermione, swapped a couple of bottles, guided by a logic known only to him, checked the log on the table, waved his wand casually, putting the columns in order. Now the hardest part – Hermione stepped back from the door a little – Snape always burst out of and disappeared into his office so swiftly, that to slip in behind him was not going to be a picnic.

The girl got lucky again – without witnesses the headmaster didn’t slam the door as hastily. From his point of view, the lock clicked only a little bit late. Done? Hermione froze as soon as she crossed the threshold, afraid even to breathe, let alone move. From this moment if she is  caught, there’d be hell to pay. But she hadn’t been yet. Snape's black eyes looked through her without any glint or expression for a few seconds – he had either felt or heard something – then the professor went to a folding screen behind his desk, and the girl finally got a tiny jolt of air.

The screen was an innovation. Attentive to details Hermione didn’t remember such an item in Slughorn’s office. No words could express how curious she was, but to poke her head over it straight away would be a mistake. The most sensible thing to do was to sit down on the floor in the farthest corner, catch her breath and wait. And so she did. She practically froze to death, sitting on the stone floor for twenty minutes, but stubbornly remained in her place, clasping her ice-cold feet with her hands. She’d better not doze off again. The fear, however, seemed to drive away the desire to sleep. Shame she hadn’t brought the book with her. And the Pensieve is not here again. Where is it, after all?

The minutes were ticking by; Snape was rustling with something bubbling behind the screen. Once he went out into the laboratory, but not for long; twice stepped to the table and scribbled a couple of lines in a notebook. At last! Someone insistently and straight away even more insistently knocked on the door. Snape got out of his shelter, rubbed his eyes at the same time as the falling-asleep Hermione, and half-opened the door, not even asking who it was and what they wanted.

“Minerva…” he stepped back.

McGonagall? What a surprise!

“Don’t worry, Severus, I have no intention of crossing your threshold,” the Head of Gryffindor reassured him, “on the contrary, I need you to come with me immediately.”

Professor McGonagall, to tell the truth, spoke hostilely with the headmaster of Hogwarts and was certainly agitated by something.

“I’ll get my wand,” Snape dashed past Hermione, who, out of curiosity, had tiptoed closer, hitting her with the edge of his robe. “What's happened?”

Yes, Hermione also wanted to know... the guys from the D.A. had been caught? Harry had given himself away? No, then McGonagall would be in a much worse condition. Though, she could barely contain herself, impatiently waiting for the headmaster on the border between the light pouring out of the corridor and the semi-darkness of the office.

“What should have been expected,” the Head of Gryffindor snapped, “a big fight between students, and it’s already the third one this week. A terrific din all over the school, only in your dungeon it can’t be heard…”

“And who is fighting?” Snape had the decency to inquire, returning with his wand.

Minerva raised her eyebrows.

“Do you really need to ask? Slytherin got into a fight with Hufflepuff. More precisely, the seventh and sixth years of Slytherin are beating the fifth years of Hufflepuff. Madam Sprout is trying to calm them down, but Malfoy is completely out of control. You do know, they obey only you… you have your own… hierarchy in there,” she continued in a temperate manner, while the headmaster was hastily casting a few additional protective spells onto the laboratory door. “And your Carrow, in my opinion, only provokes the children. Half the school is there already. I locked the Gryffindorians in their tower, but there are some persistent kids among them, and if they join the fight…”

“I understand, Minerva, let’s go…”

“Aren’t you going to lock the classroom?” McGonagall wondered. “In times like these…”

“No, Miss Granger has to return from the greenhouses. If, of course, she didn’t join the fight, she is meant to be looking for Madam Sprout.”

“I think Miss Granger wasn’t there,” McGonagall froze, “but why…”

“At least something good! If she and Draco face each other again, we won’t be able to put Hogwarts back together…” Snape grunted out. “Shall we go, Professor?”

McGonagall didn’t move, not letting him close the door.

“No, I would like to clarify something first,” she said, frowning. “Miss Granger is already in an extremely dire situation. Draco Malfoy played a trick on her in the most inexcusable way, and the detention, as I see, was given to the girl again.”

“These two events are not related…” since the Head of Gryffindor didn’t want to leave his threshold, the headmaster had to stop as well, although with visible impatience. Clearly, he’d prefer to solve the problem of the evening scuffle rather than to talk about Hermione.

“Really?” ice sparks flashed in McGonagall’s eyes. “Frankly speaking, Miss Granger is to be blamed apriori not only for her origin, but also for her friendship with Harry Potter, isn’t she?”

Professor Snape winced as if he had toothache.

“Minerva, let’s not…”

“Severus, you know I stayed here only because of the children,” McGonagall’s voice trembled with tension, “I have nothing to lose. And while I remain in this school, I will not let you turn studying at Hogwarts into a living hell. For your information, Miss Granger was supposed to sort the books in the library today. I presume this is no less important than cleaning cauldrons. May I take her from you right away?”

“No. You may not,” Snape said stiffly. “And your patronage will not help her.”

“Naturally!” Minerva exclaimed bitterly. “Nevertheless, don’t expect me to let you drive this girl out of here as you did with the students of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. I’d love to know if Draco Malfoy is going to get a detention and a deduction of points?”

“He rarely attends the school,” Snape spat out, no longer hiding his irritation. “However, rest assured – justice will be served. Draco acted disgustingly, so he’ll end up in the hospital wing. Neither I nor you are able to prevent it. And mark my words, it’s going to be your vaunted Gryffindorians who’ll give it to him. They, probably, have already made it out of their tower and are now throwing ‘Sectumsempra’ at Slytherins. Many thanks to Potter.”

As a precaution, Hermione took a step towards the Head of her House – the expression on Snape’s face triggered her fear that the headmaster wouldn’t mind casting an Unforgivable Curse on Minerva McGonagall at this very moment. His wand was still in his hand, and Minerva stood just a couple feet away from him. The Professor of Transfiguration also held her wand tightly, and at Snape’s last words immediately raised it up, without moving from her spot. Hermione clasped her hand over her mouth. For a few seconds Snape and McGonagall were piercing each other with their eyes, but neither of them waved their wands.

“One day you will bitterly regret what you are doing now, Severus,” Professor McGonagall said quietly.

“Highly unlikely,” Snape sneered. “However, let’s not stage another battle of Gryffindor against Slytherin just yet. Can we finally go? Where are they fighting?”

Minerva nodded and stepped back into the corridor wearily.

“On the first floor,” she said almost calmly. “I dread to think what will happen if the Ministry finds out about it…”

“We have to make sure that they never do…”

The exterior door closed shut and there was no doubt that a series of security charms dropped straight over it.

Hermione breathed out and lowered her wand. Professor McGonagall impressed yet frightened her. To risk so much due to your student being sent for the umpteenth detention? Most likely poor Minerva didn’t know even half of what was going on in those detentions. Hermione reminded herself that they must be careful so McGonagall continued to receive as little information as possible about the unenviable fate of a Mudblood. Otherwise, Gryffindor risked losing its Head, as had already happened with Slytherin today. Hermione would never forgive herself if something happened to Professor McGonagall because of her, and if her House lost their last defender in these terrible times. Sadly, Snape was right in this situation. The patronage of her Head would not help Hermione one bit. And she wasn’t going to hole up in McGonagall’s office until Voldemort came for both of them. Waiting for death is worse than death itself…

Using this line of reasoning, the girl looked through the papers on Snape’s table. She tried the drawers as well, but they were locked as were all the cabinets in the office and the door to the bedroom. There was no time to search for the keys and deal with the security spells – it’s unlikely that the headmaster required long to bring the boisterous scholars to their senses. Memorizing what was placed where, Hermione riffled the pages of several books (one of them vengefully hissed at her and ran into the corner), then turned to the notebook. Have any of you ever tried to wade through the draft notes of an alchemist? The girl flipped to the last page, where the professor had added something before leaving – the ink barely managing to dry. Also not too clear. A recipe for some sort of potion, written in Latin and contractions, spread over the whole page. Hermione knew Latin, and even most of the mentioned ingredients, although they didn’t study them at school. However, even Neville Longbottom wouldn’t risk making something like this on the first attempt. And he was generally indifferent to what he brewed.

Hermione looked behind the screen – she was right. Another laboratory, smaller than the first one. Cauldrons, test tubes resting in their racks, bottles with liquors and extracts. Some of the ingredients were surrounded by restrictive spells, some were placed under a magic dome. By all appearances, it was unpleasant for Snape to keep so much dangerous magic behind his back. Pity there was still no sign of the Pensieve. Trying not to touch anything in the narrow space, Hermione cautiously approached the large cauldron, the contents ripening on a slow fire. A bored hinkypunk, sitting in a sealed tank located nearby, reached out for her greedily, but the girl cast a ‘Silencio’ on it, before it started its drowsing rigmarole.

Thinking logically, the recipe on the table should be related to the cauldron with the incomprehensible concoction. Nothing else seemed to be brewing. The cauldron was also protected, so it would be impossible to lift it up and throw it away. Hermione didn’t intend to act so indiscreetly. Professor Snape would certainly notice the disappearance of the cauldron. However, barely glancing at the viscous poison-green brew, she immediately wanted to do just that. Carefully picking up the spoon with the longest handle (even Snape wouldn’t jinx such a trifle), Hermione slowly stirred the liquid in the cauldron, then pulled the spoon out and attentively investigated the thinnest trickle flowing back down into the concoction. As she presumed – it was the same abomination that Carrow had given to her. A whole cauldron! Exactly the same colour, exactly the same consistency and… the same strange smell. Hermione decided not to check its taste. This alone should be enough for the Ministry to send the Hogwarts headmaster to Azkaban. Though, half the Ministry themselves belonged in Azkaban.

Still holding the spoon in her hand, the girl returned to the table, not knowing what she was going to do next. No, the notebook didn’t describe this potion, but after some thought, Hermione came to the conclusion that the recipe for the antidote was written on the last page. That stood to reason. She did drink the antidote as well. So experiments were continuing. Hermione bit her lip. Let’s see, Professor, whether I’m so pathetic at magic, as you’d like to think…

She looked through the column of the components once more. An antidote was a pretty complicated thing if a person has already taken a poison. It’s much easier, however, to ruin the poison itself. So… what magical substance did he choose in order to neutralize the venom? It seemed to be the eyes of swamp ghouls… four units… so many! Almost the limit of safety! Or had he counted not by gallons, as it is supposed to be, but by cauldron? Hermione scratched her forehead, peering at the last lines added at the end of the recipe. _‘ **3 – 1-tm ffct.** ’_ And a pointer to the eyes of swamp ghouls. Well, this is understandable. But she didn’t need this potion to work its effect even once. So, by gallons or by cauldron? Hermione listened intensely. She thought she was taking too long with the potion, and the owner of the office could return any minute now. No, everything seemed to be quiet, only the cauldron simmered and the mute hinkypunk groaned.

Hermione shifted from one frozen foot to the other and climbed into the professor’s armchair, folding her legs under her. Moving her lips, she read the recipe once again. From what she managed to decipher only ‘armadillo bile’ really grabbed her attention – one hundred drops mixed with rat saliva in a proportion of one to ten. No point to mix it in a whole cauldron. Then it’s by gallons… Hermione shuddered. It's frightening, but she must continue. Once decided, the girl began to translate her intentions into actions. She hurried into the school laboratory, propping the office door open with a chair (if it slams, she won’t be able to get back – highly unlikely she’ll make short work of Snape’s reinforced charms.) Then things went even faster. Estimating in the process how many gallons in the cauldron, Hermione dragged the mobile ladder to the already filled shelves, flew up it as good as a dashing sailor and, diving inside the rack almost up to half her body, fished out from there a large green jar with the eyes of swamp ghouls. Descended to the floor, straightened the skew-whiff hood. Nobody? Nobody. Back into the office, prise open the top of the jar, count the desired number of eyes. There is no time to look for tweezers, but it’s okay, bare hands will have to do. The main thing is to add carefully, stirring constantly. Galloping gargoyles! She has used almost half the jar! “It’s going to explode again,” Hermione thought sadly, adding the last eye. But nothing happened. The potion rippled, fleetingly changed its colour to soft blue and returned to its previous state. Done! Fifty points to Gryffindor.

It’s time to run for ‘Pulmonaria obscura Du mort’ – mustn't overdo a good thing. She was extremely lucky that Madam Sprout had been breaking up the fight on the first floor and, therefore, it hadn’t been easy to find her. Hermione counted to five, checked the position of the papers on the table, took the spell off the hinkypunk, rinsed the spoon thoroughly, wiped it and returned it to its place, left the office and shut the door. Then she added to the jar with eyes a few new ones from an adjacent jar and restored order on the laboratory shelf. All right, she hadn’t been caught in the act, and Voldemort won’t make anyone else writhe in pain, watching the thorns break through their skin. That was something. The girl put on her shoes hurriedly, took the invisibility cloak off and hid it at the bottom of her bag. Quickly ran for lungwort’s roots, not even looking for Madam Sprout – opened the simple greenhouse lock with ‘Alohomora’ and took what she’d been told. Returning to Snape’s, she was really surprised to find him still not there. She fondly laid the roots out on the table, lining a sheet of clean paper underneath, took a sandwich out of her bag and sat to fill the accounting log. Snape appeared only about fifteen minutes later, closer to the end of her detention, when Hermione had managed to eat and get bored. Cross as… always. “Go back to your dormitory, Miss Granger” sounded like an unforgivable spell. Hermione jumped off her seat.

“Yes, sir. Good ni…”

The door to the office slammed shut.

May you toss and turn in bed all night… Hermione began hastily to shovel the sandwich box and the book about Fiendfyre into her bag. When the girl was about to leave the laboratory Professor Snape suddenly sprang out, nearly knocking her off her feet.

“The eyes of swamp ghouls start with ‘S’? ‘Swamp, ghouls, eyes of’?” he muttered in a sort of gibberish and begun to fumble among the unsorted ingredients on the floor.

Hermione, strangely enough, understood him perfectly well, but answered only a few seconds later – her lips didn’t obey her.

“N-no… with ‘E’. ‘Eyes of, ghouls, swamp’, ‘eyes of, termites’, ‘eyes of, spiders”… Sorry, spiders’ eyes before termites’…”

“Thank you, Miss Granger,” Snape also made out her babbling correctly, and switched to the rack.

Hermione became paler than the professor. He had realized… or got suspicious and was going to realize any moment now… What was she thinking about? Probably some dark arts trick told him that somebody had touched the cauldron… Why didn’t she leave the sandwich box behind? She could already be out of here, but now the headmaster blocked the way to the exit, and it was only possible for her to retreat to the wall. Hermione stepped back a little, put her hand into the bag and found her wand… Stupefy? Impedimenta? Levicorpus? Then, at least, she’ll be able to slip under him…

The professor jumped off the ladder and, not even looking at Hermione, disappeared into the depths of his office with the coveted jar.

Hermione thought she’d definitely turn grey by the end of this day. She must run. From the dungeon, from Hogwarts… straight into the forest. She’ll send an owl to Harry and Ron later. Pity, of course, but it was no minor achievement. Surely, it will take him at least a month to brew a new potion… Hermione, almost reaching the door of the classroom, was prepared to hear a bloodcurdling shrill or see a blinding flash of Avada Kedavra any second now. She did hear the shrill – a yell of real pain and horror. Afraid to believe in her hunch, Hermione rushed back.

“Alohomora! Bombarda! Bombarda maxima!” her at-the-ready wand sent one spell after the other at the bewitched office door, but only the third one managed to knock it out… along with the jambs. The door to the professor’s bedroom, situated on the same trajectory, was also demolished. Stone debris poured down, bottles fell from the shelves, and a heavy dust hung suspended in the air. Hermione, nearly deafened by the effects produced by her wand, leapt into the breach. The office, surprisingly, had been relatively untouched. Only the screen had collapsed onto the table, although not due to Hermione. Tellingly, the potion was no longer in the big cauldron – it had turned entirely into bluish-green flames and had spread to Professor Snape, mostly on his hands, yet some of it on his face. This living torch looked so horrendous that Hermione screamed too.

“Aguamenti, aguamenti, aguamenti!!!” the triple charm had a strong effect again: the professor was thrown back by a watery squall; books from the table and the cauldrons from the small laboratory were swept away by virtually an ocean wave.

Hermione was petrified with horror. She no longer doubted that she had killed the headmaster. Permanently killed.

The professor sat up, coughing and gasping for breath, feverishly shaking the sparks of the magical flame off his hair. Despite the water, the blaze was unwilling to retreat and continued to cling to his fingers, rapidly charring his skin. Hermione raised her wand once more, estimating what spell she could use next, but Snape had already put his hands into the water that flooded the floor. The flames hissed and extinguished, turning into a green steam.

“I’ll b-be right b-back…” Hermione sobbed.

Back to the racks… she remembered she’d seen it somewhere here… ‘Accio’! Something thundered on the nearest shelf. Hermione, hurling aside some more bottles and phials, grabbed a slippery tin container… Please don’t be dead…

“Professor, Professor Snape, here… let me help you,” she mumbled, kneeling next to her teacher.

The professor said nothing. Crying from the pain, he tried to pull his magic wand out from his pocket, but immediately rejected the idea. His hands disobeyed him; blood was oozing from under his melted nails. Hermione, teeth chattering, began to lubricate the burns with a viscous, fragrant-with-herbs ointment. The smell of burnt flesh dissipated a little.

She had almost killed a man, almost killed… But why, in the name of Merlin, did he…

“Here, drink this,” the girl, suddenly recollecting, dived into her bag and extracted Professor Slughorn’s farewell gift.

“What is it?” Snape tried to translate his moan into articulate speech and simultaneously focus his eyes on the vial. “Ah! Very well…”

Hermione crawled closer and hand-fed him a third of the bottle, then the professor shook his head: that’s enough. He kept his own hands raised, his fingers couldn’t feel anything and didn’t bend. The ointment began its healing effect, but the burns from the bewitched fire were quite deep; his skin was almost completely peeled off. What vile potions you brew, Professor! Hermione should have been pleased – surely the author of ingenious potions now felt as bad as she had yesterday. Hermione, however, wasn’t happy one tiny bit – only disgusted to see that magic can do such hideous things. In general, it didn’t turn out too bad – it could have been worse. His hands will heal – the burns were not enchanted spikes, after all. Most likely, the professor won’t even lose his peculiar beauty. Hermione wiped her eyes with a sleeve of her robe and tried to smear the burns on the headmaster’s face, but Snape pulled away from her.

“I can take it from here,” he hissed, snatching the container from her hand. The painkiller seemed to have begun working.

“Sorry, Professor. I didn’t mean to…” poor Hermione muttered.

“You didn’t mean to do what?”

“To get you hurt… to make the door fall and you hit the wall.”

Snape pierced her with a fierce look from beneath his scorched eyebrows, but didn’t answer.

“I’ll go get Madam Pomfrey,” Hermione said hoarsely, rising from her numb knees.

“Sit!” Hermione splashed back into the puddle. “No need to go for anyone. Or to call for anyone. Is that understood?”

Hermione gave an uncertain nod.

“Then go to bed. I thought I dismissed you a while ago.”

Hermione looked apprehensively at the headmaster’s burned face, but didn’t dare to leave. Besides, what’s the point? Now he’ll definitely kill her. Will make her deader than dead. ‘Moritas more’... Or perhaps Voldemort himself will want to take part… for her attempt on his beloved servant’s life. She had almost killed a man…

Snape remained ominously silent, carefully rubbing the ointment on his scorched fingers. His movements were getting better each time, but his soaking wet figure in the drenched robe with its charred sleeves still looked utterly deplorable.

“Did you not hear me?” he asked irritably after a minute. “Stop hypnotizing me with your gaze and don’t sit in that puddle, it’s poisonous. Though, I’m not sure any more…”

He suddenly yelled, not finishing his sentence, and jerked the hand applying the ointment away from his mutilated wrist.

“I think it might be better if I do it, Professor,” Hermione said compassionately.

Apparently the painkiller drops were not strong enough.

“Set off to the Dark Lord instead of me?” Snape asked stiffly. “Go ahead.”

Hermione shuddered. Now she noticed that too – in the dim light of the few surviving candles, through a fresh burn, squeezing the lymph and the blood out, the Dark Mark was materialising. Hell. McGonagall was right – they lived in hell.

“Let me, at least, clean up in here,” Hermione offered torpidly.

“I’ll manage without your help, Miss Granger.”

Was he embarrassed to disapparate in front of her? Serving the proprieties? What’s there to be shy for – everyone in the school had already seen how the Death Eaters disapparated, in broad daylight, to their Lord straight from Hogwarts. Ah! He probably didn’t want her to peep at something in here. Besides, he needed to get himself in order – to go to his master, looking like that, might not be comme il faut. Hermione suddenly grinned. On the other hand, Professor Snape had already washed his hair. For once in a while. For some reason the girl was unhealthily amused by this thought, and began to giggle, leaning her back against a table leg.

Snape didn’t interfere with her fun – absent-mindedly observing the student’s hysteria, he cradled his torn-by-the-Dark-Mark hand to his chest. The one-legged hinkypunk plashed from the darkness through the water spreading around the floor, rocked hither and thither, rattling with its lantern, and nestled its head against the professor’s shoulder.

“Need to sleep, sleep, sleep… Need to sleep, you all need to sleep… Follow me, follow me… I know where you can sleep… I know, I know, I know such a place…”

Hermione forced herself not to look at the magical creature – the last thing she wanted was to fall asleep here. She glanced around the room – lopsided arch leading to the laboratory, splinters of glass glistening in black water, books scattered in the corners. A large bowl of moon-white stone faintly glowed in the dense darkness behind the broken door to the bedroom. Hermione had found the Pensieve.


	9. Chapter 9

The flags flapped over Hogwarts, the Dark Mark in the rainy sky shone like a new Sickle, the Headmaster paraded around in a robe of the darkest gala black, the students and the teachers swallowed their tongues – a ministerial inspection had come to the school...

On the part of the inspectors it was dishonourable to arrive at the very beginning of the academic year, when the new headmaster had not familiarized himself with all of his duties yet, half of the staff had changed and still hardly knew the remaining half, and the Head of one of the Houses had disappeared in an unknown direction just the day before. However, no one could stop the triumphant march of First Deputy Minister of Magic Dolores Umbridge to the Great Hall. Maybe only Voldemort, but he didn’t try.

Therefore, the morning began with fun – with a profound addressing by, first, Dolores and then by the accompanying Yaxley and Runcorn, respectively responsible for magical law enforcement and registration of Muggle-Borns, to everyone present and, in particular, to the future of the wizarding world. ‘The future’ answered with applause and respectful silence – the headmaster had put a ‘Silencio’ charm on the Houses tables behind the inspectors’ backs. In general, the school made a favourable first impression on the inspection. Although First Deputy Umbridge was a little concerned by the absence of Hufflepuffian Stephen O’Leary among the students, about whom the Ministry had a special writ associated with the auror successes of his parents. But having learned that the boy cannot be taken from school for he was already spending his days at St Mungo's, Umbridge brightened and was consoled. Breakfast was the only part of the morning that the students enjoyed as it was slightly better than usual and, at least, in order not to give the inspectors nausea, looked appetizing. Due to the welcoming speeches the meal was delayed, and, so as not to be late for their first lessons, the students had to run into their dormitories at breakneck speed for books, creating a crush in front of the common room doors, and then to rush equally madly to their classes, barging into each other in the corridors. The stairs were having a hard time, mixing up the floors; poltergeist Peeves malevolently confused the first years with false directions. The worst part was that the inspectors were going to visit some classes today, but no one knew which ones.

“I hope not us,” was the first thing Harry said when his mouth finally thawed after the protracted ‘Silencio’.

“If Snape is not cracked, he’ll do everything to not let Umbridge go to Harry Potter’s class. Especially to Professor McGonagall’s lesson,” Ron was comforting his friend and combing his hair on the move at the same time – both were going rather amiss.

“Snape is not cracked? I dunno… But if Umbridge is not cracked she’ll come to us,” Harry answered out of breath.

They had just heroically fought their way through a crowd on the Grand Staircase and were now trying not to be late for Transfiguration. They were still far away from the classroom and, therefore, had to run, or half-run, all the time.

“What’s there for her at Professor McGonagall’s? She’d be better off visiting Carrow’s Dark Arts or, at the very least, Muggle Studies,” Hermione, dishevelled more than usual, objected, persistently attempting to straighten the collar of her dress robe. They had also changed in a hurry, and the girl suspected that she had put her robe on back-to-front.

“Or straight to Snape’s Potions, so they could bite each other. I bet there is no antidote to both of them.” Ron dreamt. “How was your detention, by the way? Was he really nasty?”

“Yeah, we waited for you till midnight, but you never came to us. We wanted to meet you in the common room at first, but McGonagall dispersed everyone to their dormitory. It’s hard to argue with her,” explained Harry.

“Everything is all right,” Hermione reassured her friends, bravely struggling with her robe. “For me, at least… I was just so tired that I could only reach my bed and fall into it.”

She really remembered last evening as if through a fog. When she had returned from her detention the common room seemed to be empty, although lights out hadn’t been called yet. And the guys hadn’t come by to her. But yesterday her mind had been elsewhere. A miracle she hadn’t gone to the Ravenclaw tower instead of Gryffindor’s. In the morning it turned out that the whole school was intently discussing yesterday's battle. All the way to the classroom the boys, viding with each other, described minutely the victory over Slytherin, so Hermione hadn't had a chance to tell them about her detention.

“Pity you weren’t there!”

“You should have seen what a nasty tumble Malfoy took off his broom! I think Madam Pomfrey used up all Skele-Gro on him. Br-r-r!”

“You were flying along the corridors on brooms?”

“Not at first, but then the Slytherins brought theirs… Don’t worry, I didn’t forget that I’m ‘Neville’, I took off just once.”

“Yeah, it was exactly because of Malfoy. We taught him a lesson. He’ll remember his ‘Imperio’ for a long time now!”

“Ron and I jammed him from both sides. Crabbe tried to put ‘Crucio’ on Ron – can you imagine? But Ron dodged!”

“There were such goings-on there, Hermione, no words can express them! But we kicked their butts straight away! They were already encircling Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff…”

“These jerks pushed even Hufflepuff to their limits! There was one feisty Hufflepuffian girl – Eveline, she’s really good at ‘Stupefy’, almost like you. We need to invite her to the D.A., though, she’s quite young…”

“And the ceiling on the first floor is, probably, still covered in scorch marks… But that’s not us – it was Zabini, who sent ‘Incendio’ at Terry. But he only singed his broom a little… Slytherins were afraid of absolutely nothing – Carrow arrived almost immediately and behaved like in his Dark Arts lesson. Only that didn’t save them!”

“And Carrow wanted to give us all detentions! Except the Slytherins, of course. But McGonagall outstripped him and said that she had already distributed the cleaning of the Owlery until Christmas. And Carrow held his tongue, imagine that! Therefore the D.A. can hold meetings in the Owlery as well now. Big deal!”

“McGonagall had locked us in the tower at first, can you believe it?! As if we were little children. We wanted to knock the door out with ‘Bombarda’, but felt sorry for the Fat Lady. And then we realised we could use our brooms to fly out of the windows. Isn’t that cool?”

“You disobeyed our Head?”

“Well, she went for Snape at that moment. You should have seen him on a broom! The last time I saw him was when he once judged a Quidditch match. In the second year… no, in the first… Anyway, he yelled at us so furiously that our blood turned to ice… It’s a good thing I’m not Potter anymore!”

“You didn’t listen to the Headmaster either?”

“Listen to Snape? He was saving his little snakes as usual. He pulled Goyle from his broom by the scruff of his neck and withdrew his broom. Escorted his precious Malfoy to the hospital wing personally…If he had not crawled out of his dungeon, we’d have given it to them for sure. But that will have to do… for the time being.”

“So, what about your detention?”

“Well… nothing special,” muttered Hermione.

“Nothing special? At Snape’s?” Ron couldn’t believe it. “He didn’t even yell at you or throw you out the door? Great part of being an outstanding student… Maybe then it was better that you sat out there, otherwise you’d run into a pissed-off Carrow!”

“‘Sat out there?’” Hermione reddened. “You think it’s good to sit with Professor Snape for an hour or two?”

“I didn’t want to…” Ron lost track of his thoughts, “but you said yourself…”

“I meant that I didn’t end up in the hospital wing and that I finally managed to sleep at night,” snapped Hermione. “And as for the rest, Professor Snape remains true to himself. Of course he yelled at me and threw me out the door, Ron, – all neat and proper. And he still hates you, Harry.”

“He asked about me?” Harry said, alarmed.

“You bet! He started with it. But I sent him to the Order of the Phoenix.”

“And he didn’t try to use Veritaserum on you?” Ronald asked with disbelief.

“No, Ron, in case you’re interested, only Legilimency and Crucio… a bit.”

“WHAT?!” Harry and Ron chorused, stopping abruptly.

“You heard,” Hermione snarled, still offended by their condescending attitude towards the diligence she had put into her task, “in my opinion, I did okay with Occlumency. Although the professor said I’ve had wretched training, and that there’s no point meddling with the Dark Lord with such lack of knowledge.”

“He did?” the guys bristled up.

“Yes, he did. Next time he will probably check how I can resist ‘Avada’… Why have we stopped? Transfiguration begins in two minutes!”

They continued to hurry along the corridor.

“You can’t go to these detentions anymore,” Harry said seriously.

“I’d kill this skunk,” added Ron.

“I already nearly killed him yesterday,” Hermione admitted quietly. “Therefore the next detention, most likely, won’t occur.”

The boys stumbled and came to a halt again, staring at her wide-eyed.

“You’re not joking?” gasped Harry. “You… almost killed… Snape?”

“Oh, come off it,” Ron said with incredulity. “He was up and about at breakfast.”

“It happened by accident! I don’t even want to talk about it…” Hermione sighed heavily. “I did so much mischief yesterday… Probably because of lack of sleep. Let’s go! Why have we stopped again?” she urged them on. “On the plus side, I ruined the potion that he was brewing for You-Know-Who, the one that made the thorns grow through the skin. Your cloak really helped me out, Harry. And the other good thing – I found the Pensieve. It sits in Professor Snape’s bedroom,” she sighed once more. “What do you say now, Ron? Did I have _a really nice time_?”

Ronald whistled admiringly.

“Holy Trolly! Amazing job, Hermione! No one could have done it – only you!”

“So, what about the Pensieve? Is it difficult to get to?” Harry asked anxiously.

“To be honest, almost impossible,” the girl admitted. “I had to knock two doors out with ‘Bombarda Maxima’”.

Ron's jaw dropped.

“And… Snape didn’t notice anything?” he mumbled, exchanging glances with a dumbfounded Harry.

“Of course he did – he was in the office!” exclaimed Hermione. “That’s why I couldn’t approach the Pensieve. Oh, this cannot be explained on the go… To cut a long story short, I ruined the potion and the cauldron burst into flames when Professor Snape got close to it. Whether I made a mistake or he added something else into the cauldron…”

Ronald was delighted.

“Galloping gargoyles! Snape’s cauldron exploded! We must remember to tell Neville!”

“Ron, it happens to everyone sooner or later,” Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Considering that Snape brews such potions, I wonder how he still alive.”

“It's not funny, actually!” Hermione put them down. “A bluish-green fire that couldn’t be extinguished with water got out of that cauldron. I’m still shaking with fear!”

“So what, you dashed to save Snape?” Harry guessed smartly.

“Well… I did. What else could I do?”

Harry looked at his friend sympathetically, as if she were a child who had to have a truism explained.

“Hermione, he’ll eat you now.”

Hermione shuddered.

“You think he’ll figure out what happened with the potion? I did everything very carefully, actually. He won’t be able to prove anything…”

“We are talking about Snape, Hermione! He needs no proof!” Harry said sadly. “Although this isn’t the first time you set fire to him, he’s soon going to deduce that it’s you. Don’t you know Snape? He's incredibly vindictive! I bet he still hasn’t forgiven you for the ‘Imperio’…”

“As if I were to blame,” Hermione’s features darkened.

“You were, indirectly, by making a fool of him. And then you smashed his precious dungeon, twice in a day, and in the end you found a way to give him aid. Snape never forgives such things,” Harry mused for a couple of seconds, shook his head and gave his verdict: “I wouldn’t go to the next detention if I were you. Unless he reminds you about it.”

Hermione turned very white.

“And what if he does?” she whispered, finally overcoming her obstinate robe.

“Then… you’ll have to go. But with all this ministerial inspection, I doubt he’ll remember. Though, if he bears a grudge against you… Maybe you’d better leave Hogwarts after all? Look what's going on here!”

“Don’t you start again, okay?” the girl pleaded. “Where can I leave to? Harry, wake up, my parents are Muggles! I had a lot of trouble to make them live in Australia and not remember me. And now you suggest me to turn everything back? I’ll only make it worse for them! To be on the run from You-Know-Who, to be on the run from Snape…How will I explain that I didn’t please a couple of evil wizards and our family needs to secrete itself now? Besides, where can we hide if You-Know-Who starts the war and the Death Eaters are going to be everywhere?”

Harry kept a gloomy silence; Ron looked at the girl with horror.

“You say very terrible things, Hermione,” he admitted. “Well, don’t go home, just hide somewhere. In the Order of the Phoenix, for example! All you need is to stay away from our headmaster… Okay, sorry, I’m shutting up. We won’t talk about it again, we promise you!”

“Everybody needs to stay away from our headmaster,” Hermione had already pulled herself together. “Though, he didn’t kill me yesterday, after all, so let’s hope he won’t do it today either. I'm not going to be afraid of him! And we’re desperate for the Pensieve, remember? I’ve found it, now all we have to do is to come up with an idea of how to steal it.”

“Maybe we can do it without the Pensieve,” Harry said unconvincingly. “Let’s just work at it from other angles. We do know what one of the Horcruxes looks like…”

Hermione, however, didn’t share his optimism.

“Harry, you’ve been talking about that locket for a few months now, and everything has been in vain.”

“Yes, but…”

“Stop!” Ronald, who ran half a step ahead and had already turned the last corner of the corridor, pulled back abruptly, almost crashing into his friends.

“Who’s there? Vold…” Harry tried to joke.

“Don’t say..!”

“Worse – the inspectors,” whispered Ron. “That’s right, they came to McGonagall.”

“And we are late, as if in spite!” Hermione got upset. “I told you to hurry up, but you were stopping every two steps.”

“Well, maybe it’s good that we’re late,” Ron tried to talk his way out. “Maybe we’d better skip this class?”

“And leave McGonagall at the mercy of that pack of hyenas?” Harry hesitated.

“Carrow’s among them. He’ll give us detentions,” Hermione shuddered.

“And for being late he won’t?”

“For being late less harsh ones…”

“Okay, let’s go…”

Still questioning themselves should they escape or not, the trio carefully pulled out around the corner, nervously adjusting their robes. The robes kept bunching up a bit – the stocks of the Polyjuice Potion, the Boy-Who-Lived’s wand with a phoenix feather, the fake Slytherin locket, the phial with Dumbledore’s memory, the Marauder's Map and the Invisibility cloak were divided between the three of them and hidden under their school uniforms since the arrival of the inspection most likely meant the dormitories being searched. The inspectors would have a cow if they decided to search each of the students personally. Fortunately, things weren’t that bad yet. For now the latecomers only got off with McGonagall’s pained look and the headmaster’s icy “Thirty points from Gryffindor”.

“Piss off,” Harry grunted as they, reddened and disgraced, squeezed past the inspectors to the back row, hiding from their sight.

Ronald, also in a whisper, called the First Deputy Umbridge a foul toad – she had made a remark about discipline.

Basically, they had no liking for either the First Deputy or the Headmaster, and it immediately became clear that attending the class wasn’t worthwhile. But it was too late to retreat. The door had already been closed, and the inspectors were seated in magically created chairs. Umbridge, Yaxley, Runcorn from the Ministry side, Snape and Amycus Carrow from the school’s. Professor McGonagall nervously straightened the square spectacles on her nose and began the lesson.

‘The transformation of metal into warm-blooded…’ Hermione wrote down the topic and glanced askew at the boys sitting on either side of her. Ronald was fiddling with the quill in his hand; Harry was tapping his fingers on the tabletop. In fact everybody, the entire final year, was nervous. Because of the inspection and because of yesterday’s fight. But they were nervous in different ways – the class was divided into two by an invisible line. Everyone was angry with Slytherin, and Slytherin was angry with everyone. Good thing Draco Malfoy was absent today – he wasn’t feeling well. The atmosphere in the classroom was so electric that even the wands were on the verge of producing sparks. The inspection was too much and threw both flanks off balance, making young wizards look at one another silently. The Slytherins – with expressions of gloomy anticipation, the non-Slytherins – with grim melancholy. The line between the Houses was indicated more clearly. And September had only just begun!

Hermione thought that Professor McGonagall’s nervousness was increasing precisely because of this hostile aura in the classroom, although she tried not to show her anxiety. Only Umbridge and her silent companions appeared to be comfortable. The First Deputy smiled with the most sugary of smiles, adjusted the layered lace of her lilac dress robe and clearly enjoyed the reigning atmosphere. From time to time she interrupted McGonagall with an unnecessary question or a stupid comment, scribbled lines in her notebook, and asked the Headmaster or the new Head of Slytherin about something or other. It was very hard to sit, catching her heavy, expressionless look every now and again. When will this lesson be over, really? But it seemed to be endless.

Hermione soon stopped writing and just listened. Not out of laziness, but because she knew the topic well and had too much to think about. While her mind was fresh after managing to get some sleep…

“Look, Snape is blacker than usual today. He has even got gloves on. It must be his dress uniform,” Harry whispered to her, having nothing better to do. “Listen, is it me or did he cut his hair a little and deign to wash it? I think he did! Merlin’s beard! Is it because of Umbridge?”

“No, it’s because of me,” Hermione avoided looking at the Headmaster, but now she had to do so. “I sloshed him with ‘Aguamenti’… three times…”

Harry laid his head on the desk and sunk his teeth into his fist, trying his best not to laugh.

“Tell Ron…”

“I don’t see anything funny about it,” yesterday’s euphoria had left Hermione a long time ago. “You told me yourself the Headmaster will hate me for that!”

“He already hates everybody.”

“What’s up?” Ronald glanced at them.

“Nothing,” Hermione took her quill once again – the First Deputy had aimed her eyes at the trio with the accuracy of a sniper shot.

The Headmaster, incidentally, looked even worse than yesterday. Sallow skin, dark shadows beneath his eyes – she’s seen happier corpses. The burns, however, were practically invisible, at least on his face. Without peering closely one would never guess they were there. He’d had to cut his hair a bit though – it had been scorched, but still from the sides, where the enchanted fire should have left scars, nothing could be seen beyond the usual black dishevelled locks. And his hands obviously still hurt… And still, what had he done to the potion? Had he added the eyes of ghouls by mistake or had something else happened to the cauldron, and the eyes were needed to work on the antidote? It was hard to believe that Snape could make such a dangerous mistake, but the fact that he wanted to ruin the whole potion, which had been brewed long and laboriously, she couldn’t understand either. If he did it in small amounts, she’d interpreted it as an experiment, but like that… It didn’t make any sense. Another interesting question – how had he managed to exonerate himself in the eyes of the Dark Lord after that misfortune? Had he really wormed his way out, as Ron says, that easily? How does this man manage to get off the hook all the time? Professor Snape glanced at Hermione briefly, and she quickly averted her eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” Ron nudged her from the left.

Hermione looked at the double runic ‘S’, which she had doodled absent-mindedly on the corner of her parchment.

“About Salazar Slytherin – what to do with the locket,” she whispered.

“Any new thoughts?”

“Not at the moment…”

Harry nudged her from the right.

“Hermione, can you see anything on my face?”

“No, why?” the girl frowned, immediately realising what he was talking about.

“It hurts again…”

“How bad is it?”

“Not very much. Tolerable.”

“Can it be because of the inspection? Yaxley and Runcorn are definitely connected to You-Know-Who.”

“Yeah, maybe…”

Umbridge stared once again in their direction, and this time her eyes lingered a little before moving on.

Hermione buried herself in her notes. After a bit of musing she pulled out a clean sheet of parchment from beneath the top one and put it between Harry and herself.

_“He wants me to study Fiendfyre.”_

Harry looked at her uncomprehendingly. Hermione pointed to Snape with her quill.

 _“Dark magic?!”_ Harry wrote back.

_“He says it’s not.”_

Harry sniffed incredulity – to believe Snape?!

 _“This surprised me the most. I don’t understand why,”_ Hermione added quickly.

_“Wants to use you for his own purposes?”_

_“Such as?”_

_“Dunno.”_

_“Refuse? If he remembers…”_

_“Dunno… We have to decide about the Pensieve first. If we need it, you can’t be kicked out. Play for time?”_

Hermione nodded dubiously and handed the sheet to Ron.

 _“What is Ff?”_ he wrote.

“I’ll explain later,” the girl whispered, hiding the paper under the desk and quickly incinerating it with her wand.

McGonagall had just completed the introductory part of the lesson reduced to a minimum for the occasion of the inspectors’ arrival and announced that it was time to switch to practical exercises. Everyone begun to rustle, pulling out their wands, not forgetting to look askew at each other and at the inspection members. Umbridge, taking advantage of the short break, asked McGonagall something. The Head of Gryffindor went purple, and Snape villainously livened up. Apparently he could catch any spoken word at any distance, because he immediately dashed up to the First Deputy with his renowned lightning and stealthy lunge which had ruined hundreds of cheat sheets. Professor Snape also spoke in a whisper, but his whisper had the ability to reach and paralyze the students on the farthest desks. Ronald nudged Hermione, who was already getting herself ready to transfigure a buckle into a mouse.

“In fact, Madam Umbridge, we’re using all the means possible to isolate the Muggle-born students from the pureblood wizards,” the Headmaster explained kindly. “Muggle-borns sleep in separate dormitories, are not permitted to speak to others without acute need, and must occupy the desks at the rear of the classrooms. There are not many non-pureblood wizards at Hogwarts at the moment; therefore, it is not necessary to make a separate schedule for them… Today’s situation,” he cast a withering glance at Minerva McGonagall, “is not typical and is connected with the confusion caused by your arrival.”

“And yet this system is not very convenient, Headmaster,” Dolores smiled. “In reality it turns out that everyone sits in a jumble. Pureblood wizards not only aren’t accorded any privileges, but also they cannot even be distinguished from the Mudbloods,” she chided gently.

The flank of Slytherin buzzed with approval. Umbridge smiled again.

“Our inspection, Headmaster, has the impression that such a state of affairs leads to unhealthy tension in a group. Especially since, as I remember, there have been far too many enrolments in Hogwarts in the last few years,” she uttered, calmly looking around the half-empty class. “I think it would be advisable for the Ministry of Magic to consider the possible expulsion of Mudbloods from the education system. Of course this will concern not only the students, but also the staff. You’d agree it’s unacceptable for a non-pureblood to teach a pureblood. This degrades the dignity of the true wizard…”

Hermione dropped her wand. The rest of her classmates froze with their wands raised. A fundamental policy was being created right in front of their eyes.

Professor Snape nodded, agreeing with the First Deputy’s point of view.

“We have no Muggle-born teachers at this moment,” he clarified with restraint. “There are, however, a few non-pureblood wizards, but this is due to temporary difficulties with the number of applicants for employment.”

You are a half-blood yourself, you flipping bastard! Harry and Ron exchanged angry glances over Hermione’s drooped head. Hermione stared at the desk, struggling against the upcoming tears. Her trembling fingers, smeared with ink, were tearing off small scraps from her notes.

“The changes affecting the wizarding world are not yet understood by everyone. Nevertheless, I believe that when Hogwarts is freed from the Muggle-borns, the purebloods will come here more willingly to teach and to study,” the Headmaster calmly concluded his thought. “As for the students born of Muggles…”

Hermione had no need to lift her head up; she felt with her skin the familiar, unfriendly-indifferent glance sliding over her.

“It’s because of me!” she muttered, blankly looking at her unfinished notes. “Vengeful spawn of a gargoyle!”

He understood it, he certainly did! The game is over, kids! For Hermione, who had rarely missed the prefix ‘professor’ when addressing the Curse from the Dungeon, the last remark was unspeakably extraordinarily. The girl was being hushed from both sides.

“Don’t spout bosh,” Ron whispered, grasping her left arm under the desk.

“And sit quietly,” Harry joined in, squeezing her right wrist. “It’s not the end of the world to be thrown out of school!”

The guys seemed to be really frightened that for Hermione Granger not to graduate Hogwarts was the equivalent of death. And after making a scandal in front of the inspectors, she’ll either go to St Mungo’s, following the path of Stephen O'Leary, or – a much worse scenario – be taken by the inspectors to the ministerial trials, from which Stephen was released only due to his fortunate and timely mental breakdown. Hermione was currently mentally fit, but she looked like she was rapidly approaching the border.

“As for the students born of Muggles, the school will soon be able to easily remove them,” the Headmaster continued. “Regrettably, at this moment they have some useful functions. I am talking not only about the domestic householding needs, although with regard to the mass escape of the house-elves to freedom, such a huge castle as Hogwarts requires an additional labour force. I have already mentioned this problem in my report to the Ministry,” a small nod towards Umbridge. “However, this is a temporary passing phenomenon – no one doubts that the problem with the elves is going to be solved in the very near future. Nonetheless…” now the Headmaster addressed the class, in fact looking only towards the Slytherins, “…other needs, known to us all, require a true wizard to develop such skills as the evaluation of the capacity of _another_ wizard, the submission of the will of the _other_ wizard, the suppression of the magical defence capability of this _other_ wizard.” The professor deliberately emphasized the word ‘other’, slowly moving his hypnotic gaze along the students’ faces. “Therefore it makes sense to keep the composition of the classes mixed. Perhaps the Muggle-born students, with due regard to discipline and school regulations, will be given the possibility to accommodate themselves in the magical world. At any rate, this is a good opportunity for all, although we do not welcome their studying at Hogwarts.”

The Slytherins hummed with joy.

“I beg your pardon, Headmaster,” the Head of Gryffindor began suddenly, loud and clear, “but while we are all here, I would like to clarify, in order to avoid misunderstandings: what are these additional goals that Hogwarts sets for itself? I personally don’t know anything about them.”

“You personally, Professor McGonagall, have no say in the matter,” Snape snapped.

McGonagall shuddered as though slapped on the cheek. Her right hand twitched as if she was going to draw her wand out – Runcorn and Yaxley, who were clearly bored before, rose from their seats synchronously. But the Head of proud Gryffindor simply pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket to wipe her spectacles.

“I think that as one of the four Heads, I am obliged to express my opinion about the tasks that our school sets for itself,” she said calmly, her jade-green eyes moving from Umbridge to Professor Snape. “After all, the solving of these tasks may be beyond some people’s strength and heart. The views on the teaching system can be very different, and Hogwarts is a school with long traditions.”

Dolores blinked excitedly and opened her mouth, but the Headmaster, seething with anger, attacked Minerva first.

“Gryffindor,” he hissed with a distorted face, “will acquire a new Head as quick as did Slytherin, if you, Professor McGonagall, for some reason are not satisfied with the teaching system at Hogwarts. If your objections are less crucial, you can inform me about them in due course after you crossed the threshold of MY OFFICE.”

The Gryffindors exploded, jumping to their feet, but immediately pulled back, obeying the gesture from their Head. The words ‘Greasy-haired son of a…’ and ‘Dumbledore would never…’ hung in the air. With one single look Snape nailed the bristling Slytherins to their seats. Being in the minority, those from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw edged closer to each other, as though they were preparing for spells to fly above their heads.

“There, there,” Umbridge readily stepped up to the final years, spreading her arms and making it clear that the merit of restoring peace and understanding belonged exclusively to her. “Now I see, children, that your Headmaster is absolutely right. Sharp changes would be an unbearable blow to your subtle and delicate souls…”

Carrow gave a frustrated grunt; Crabbe and Goyles’ delicate souls reflected on their faces with a vague anticipation of grievous disappointment.

“The Ministry of Magic deems that, in the interests of maintaining peace and quiet, it will be acceptable to keep the current composition of the classes for the time being. Of course, under the personal responsibility of your esteemed Headmaster, who is certainly aware of the situation at the school better than anyone else.” Snape gave a short toss of his greasy wisps, thanking her for the trust. “Nevertheless,” Umbridge’s wide, slack mouth stretched into an even more radiant smile, baring her small, pointed teeth, “the Ministry sees a need to develop more precise measures that determine the Mudbloods’ way of life,” she turned to Snape again, as if searching for inspiration. “Prohibition on movement outside the school… Some sort of distinctive signs that will allow controlling them better… We could enforce a separate colour for their robes,” she continued enthusiastically, straightening the folds of her baggy attire with sizable pleasure. “Why, in fact, are they no different from the other students’ robes? Black would be ideal…”

Both flanks gagged with resentment. Minerva McGonagall nearly dropped her spectacles, which she was about to return to her nose.

The Headmaster cracked his knuckles and winced, as though he’d received a sharp pain.

“Black is a very practical colour indeed,” the temperature of his voice fell to absolute zero, “but the main colour of the school robes is already this.”

“Is it?” Umbridge didn’t get upset. “I haven’t thought about that… Maybe grey then?”

“As the Ministry sees fit,” Snape said without changing his tone. “I’m even prepared to dress them in shrouds, if necessary. But such small details can, as I understand, be discussed later.”

“You’re right, perhaps” Umbridge raised a sigh, tired of a long speech. “So, where were we? Ahh, yes. Well, let us see how one of the students handles the practice task and then we can go to a quieter place and share our impressions,” she grinned towards the meaningfully-silent Yaxley and Runcorn. “But first you should all be sat properly,” Dolores turned to the class and clapped her hands a couple of times.

Gryffindor seventh years exchanged glances with Slytherins. Some of them sat upright, others raised their wands into the initial position. The Headmaster rolled his eyes up to the Dark Mark.

“Muggle-borns, move to the back row. The rest release the space for them.”

The Muggle-borns required very little space, but Harry, Ron and a couple of people hurriedly crawled closer to the inspectors and, putting some chairs there, settled themselves in the aisle.

“Thank you, Headmaster,” Dolores said with satisfaction, flirtatiously adjusting the lace of her robe.

The vast majority present practically retched. Coquetry oozing from Umbridge was extra disgusting as it was aimed at Snape. Snape gave her a sour smile – ‘any time’. Hermione, left alone at the rear of the classroom, opened her eyes wide and half-rose from her seat. She didn’t even react to the languid greeting from the depressed Dean Thomas joining her behind the desk.

“Good thing they didn’t kick us out…”

“Huh…”

“And grey is better than black, don’t you think?”

“Uh-huh…”

She tried to catch Ronald’s or Harry’s eye – unable to leave her place in exile or to shout, she couldn’t see any other way to contact her friends. If only that dunce Harry had learned Legilimency! Having thought that, the girl glanced in alarm at the only Legilimens in the class. However, Professor Snape had no intention of probing her head, and it seemed like he didn’t care if Miss Granger rose, lay down or died. In fact, the latter would even be preferable. Harry and Ron were seriously busy with the difficult reshuffle of the front rows. Umbridge had just advised them to occupy vacant seats on the flank of Slytherin, and Potter-Longbottom, not wanting to sit at Malfoy’s place, was acting capriciously. Idiots! Don’t they have anything better to think about?! At last McGonagall, Snape, and even Carrow with their combined efforts had managed to convince Umbridge, who was concerned about the correctness of the pureblood wizards' posture, that it was not necessary to mix the Gryffindors with the Slytherins to such an extent, and the silence that had been absent for quite some time finally reigned. Hermione nearly went insane, wondering if the boys had seen what she had, or, as always, they had missed the most important thing. Be that as it may, none of them turned to her.

Professor McGonagall, who was, at last, officially allowed to speak, adjusted her spectacles with a customary gesture, returned the large, chequered handkerchief to the wide pocket of her robe, and flicked her wand, summoning a little table with a training inventory closer to her. A golden spoon, a silver ring, and a copper candlestick – the task was pretty obvious.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen, who would like…” she began in her usual voice.

“Me! Me!! Me!!!” upstart Granger raised her hand so sharply that it almost flew out of its joint. Straight after that Hermione sprang to her feet, not allowing anyone, especially Professor Snape – a great master of the case, – to ignore her initiative. One demonstration of skills, Umbridge said, _only one_! Then the inspectors will go to confer somewhere else, most likely to the Headmaster’s office, and once there _it's_ as good as lost! Everyone had shuddered from her yell; Dean, sitting next to her, almost fell from his chair; Harry and Ron stared at her in horror, and half the Slytherins twirled their wands at their temples, but none of that mattered to Hermione. Her whole body trembled. Never before in her life had she had such a strong desire to answer. Carrow and Snape snarled angrily and exchanged whispers, piercing the girl with their furious gazes.

“Please…”

“Is there something you wanted to say, Miss… Hermione?” McGonagall uttered carefully.

“Please, Professor, allow me to demonstrate the Transfiguration!” Hermione begged, switching the same pleading look to the First Deputy. “I really want to show the inspectors that non-pureblood wizards can benefit as well!”

A wave of mockery swept through the class.

“Granger’s gone nuts…”

“In my opinion, she’s overacting...”

And Snape – Slytherin viper – said to Umbridge looking at him enquiringly:

“I would advise against.”

“Why is that?” Dolores lightened up. “It’s all right if the girl fails. Everyone understands that impure blood makes it difficult to manage magic.”

Can you, at least, transfigure a fork into a spoon, you, rotten toad?!

“That’s not what I mean,” Snape winced. “Though, do as you please…”

Hermione was already running towards the blackboard. A wild thatch of curly hair, wand at the ready.

“Why?” Harry tugged her robe, as she passed him.

“Her neck…”

“When you are ready, Hermione,” McGonagall met her best student with a mixed expression in her eyes. On the one hand, she had no doubt of Hermione’s ability to give a good result; on the other, she was concerned how much the extra attention would hurt the bright, full of initiative, Mudblood. The best in her year. A close friend of the Chosen Boy.

Hermione approached the tray with the metal objects. Everyone, of course, stared at her. McGonagall smiled at her encouragingly and raised her wand for a little insurance merely as a matter of routine rather than a real precaution. Professor Snape silently backed off half a step and placed his hands, still holding his wand tightly, behind his back.

“I would like,” Hermione’s eyes, sunken from the lack of sleep, flashed gleefully, “to dedicate this transformation to the significant arrival of the ministerial inspection to our marvellous Hogwarts and, personally, to the most respected First Deputy Umbridge. The hardest part of Transfiguration is the accuracy of separating an object from its environment, especially if its structure is heterogeneous. I therefore hope that my skills will be appreciated by our highly esteemed guests.”

And before anyone could start wondering what complication she had found in the separation of the spoon from the tray and what components she wanted to divide the gold into, Hermione flicked her wand towards the First Deputy and immediately cast an invisible shield as a precaution. It didn’t matter who’d decide to neutralize her – the Shield Charm was meant to be a protection from anyone’s conjurations, as the Headmaster had said.

Indeed, a couple of spells – Carrow’s  signature ‘Incarcerous’ and Runcorn’s ‘Stupefy’ – instantly rebounded off her shield. Snape also lifted up his wand but didn’t perform any magic. What’s the point? Now definitely was the wrong time for a glorified sparring session. Especially since the First Deputy Umbridge, with an ultrasound squeal, spun on the spot as though she had a Dark Mark which was burning. However, instead of disapparating, she, continuing wailing, began to shake something out of her dense lace from under the folds of her neck. A very small creature fell out from them, clinging to the waves of her purple robe with its tiny paws, struck the floor and rushed under the nearest desk.

Now all the wizards who had taken out their wands sent ‘Stupefy’ in one direction, but the little animal miraculously dodged them all, suggesting a way more powerful Shield Charm than Hermione had. Some of the girls immediately stood on their chairs due to the fact that the animal species still remained unclear. Others rushed to the hunt with the boys. Hermione also wanted to help, but McGonagall pushed her behind her back, immobilizing her with ‘Petrificus Totalus’. Miss Granger could only blink in hope that Ron or Harry would decipher her winking. The boys, however, were too busy to pay her any attention: the Seeker awakened within Harry and the Chaser within Ron, but the creature was more elusive than a Golden Snitch.

“I should have transfigured it into a turtle rather than a hamster,” Hermione thought irritably.

On the other hand, fun had finally come to the dull class. Seventeen-year-old wizards joyfully scampered about between the desks, demonstrating all the known skills of combat magic. Slytherin teamed up with Gryffindor – unalloyed cuteness. Carrow and McGonagall were giving advice to their respective students. Even Yaxley and Runcorn loosened up and began betting which House would win. That’s how much everyone had experienced the lack of entertainment these days. Of all those present only stunned Hermione and, of course, the Headmaster paid no attention to what was happening. Perhaps Snape could have swept along the aisle in his fluttering robe and caught the hamster, but preferred to carefully conceal it. Looking back at the miserable Umbridge, he only shrugged – ‘I did warn you’. Obviously he had made a mental note of her words about black robes. He gazed at everything with a detached expression on his face, as if he was recovering his breath. At last Umbridge regained her senses, stopped squealing and spoke distinctly.

“No! Don’t use ‘Incendio’! You may damage it! Careful, children! That is a very valuable item!” she made a hesitant movement towards the desks, between which the hamster was manoeuvring, but immediately stepped back – Parvati’s ‘Tarantallegra’ had swept right in front of her nose.

“Do something,” the First Deputy jumped on the wizards surrounding her. Her own spells, as one might expect, hit only the students. “That piece of jewellery is extremely precious! That locket belonged to Slytherin himself,” she whispered to Snape, wringing her hands in despair.

Snape raised an eyebrow; no doubt he was figuring out if she had suffered enough.

“Minerva, would you mind?” he said tiredly after a pause.

The Head of Gryffindor pierced the Headmaster with an outraged look – definitely hoped he would not dare to ask her. Hermione couldn't help but admire the simplicity of the solution, even though the annoyance burned her like an ‘Incendio’. Drat it! How could she forget about that? The tears of frustration run down her face, tickling her nose and cheeks. Still immobilized, she couldn’t wipe them away.

With a graceful movement Minerva McGonagall leapt into the middle of the classroom. In the persona of a cat, she acted no less professionally than in the persona of a witch. The students hastily retreated to the walls and lowered their wands, fearing to step on the professor or hit her with a spell dedicated for the hamster – Minerva was immediately on the little animal’s heels. Only Neville Longbottom, excited by the thrill of the chase, paid no attention to anyone except the booty and fearlessly competed with McGonagall, knocking over the desks with his awkward figure.

Carrow explained to Umbridge:

“He is the local idiot, but has the purest blood…”

Everyone including the Headmaster watched with great interest an exciting show, which, however, started to drag on. Having reached his own limit of expectancy, Professor Snape raised his wand, aiming at the hamster. That’s always the case – Slytherin taking away another’s victory at the very last moment. McGonagall and Longbottom had just driven the little rodent into the farthest corner under an empty desk that had flown there during the chase. It was a matter of seconds. The Head of Gryffindor was already stretching her sharp claws to the disgustingly-squealing antique locket when Neville, showing unexpected agility, dived under the desk like a fish, threw the ready-to-leap cat with one hand and with the other stretched for the hamster.

The audience gasped. McGonagall flew about a dozen feet and hit the wall, transforming back into a human. Everyone rushed towards her. Only Neville had other things on his mind – one precise movement of a born Seeker separated him from victory. Suddenly his eyes met the huge, moist eyes of the lost Trevor. The hamster or the toad? The toad or the hamster? Neville grabbed the hamster. The fight with the squirming, biting creature was short, but quite a life-and-death one. The toad was sitting right there, accusatorially staring into the face of the young man lying under the desk, but Neville could not seize it as he was busy smothering the Slytherin's locket with both hands. A bluish glow of the transfiguration flared from under the desk, and with a little delay Neville, dusty and scratched by the relic and his own Head, joined the gathering.

To a round of applause the pale, frightened boy returned the locket to the First Deputy, who, however, didn’t look happy. After carefully examining her treasure, she quickly put it back around her neck. The Headmaster’s reaction to Longbottom’s feat was also rather ambiguous. He didn’t join in the applause and just stood there like a lonely commander, polishing his wand, from which he hadn’t released a single spell today, with his gloves. He spoke only because he had to say something in front of the inspectors.

“Bravo, Mr Longbottom,” he uttered through gritted teeth, “you overshadowed Potter's dexterity. In fact, it was even superfluous.”

Neville's eyes widened. A compliment from Snape?!

“Ten points to Gryffindor for agility,” the Headmaster said kindly, “and minus fifty for injuring the Head of your House.”

Neville started to cry. He just couldn’t help it. He stood in front of the formidable professor, feeling the large tears rolling out of his eyes. Snape seemed to be touched.

“Excuse me, Mr Longbottom, I forgot that you, after all, are not Potter, and, unlike him, you don’t have nerves of steel. Wash the Astronomy Tower at your leisure. Manual labour will indoctrinate you with fortitude. Or, at the very least, the stairs will be a bit cleaner.”

Neville nodded. Snape’s subconscious must have felt his enemy in disguise. Otherwise, why had he set Longbottom’s detention in the Tower again?

Shaken, Minerva had already risen to her feet, supported on either side by students. Umbridge indignantly adjusted her frills and had no desire to stay in the classroom a minute longer, although only a person with a very vivid imagination would dare call this a classroom now. Nevertheless the First Deputy didn’t hesitate to unleash the dogs onto the cause of her suffering – Hermione. Somewhere in the middle of her ardent speech, the compassionate wizards removed the Body Freezing Spell from the girl, and she, at least, began to apologize torpidly. She had no doubt that now she was going to not only be expelled, but also be locked up in Azkaban for good. Carrow, however, didn’t want to waste the experimental material.

“Madam Umbridge, we have special detentions for such cases,” he reassured the head of the inspection. “Azkaban is destroyed anyway. Hermione, tonight at eight…”

Professor McGonagall jumped up from her chair, pressing to her temple a handkerchief carefully moistened by the students.

“I beg your pardon, Professor Carrow, but why would you give a detention to a student who was delinquent in MY lesson? I can manage myself. Hermione, tonight at eight…”

“Because,” Carrow said suavely, “I’ve been assigned inspector for Muggle-born affairs by the Ministry’s decree. Therefore, from today I am the only one who decides such matters.”

Minerva lost her power of speech. Hermione swayed and looked desperately at her friends, surrounded by the numbed Gryffindorians. Their faces were contorted with disbelief, but what could be done? Harry and Ron exchanged glances, nodded to each other and began slowly dragging their wands from their pockets. Hermione shook her bushy-haired head in terror – no, don’t do it!

“But it’s only from today, I believe?” the Headmaster asked Carrow irritably; the traces of an excruciating internal struggle along with the desire to get rid of everyone present as quickly as possible could be seen on his face. “Miss Granger so excelled at my lesson yesterday that she had already earned an open-ended detention for herself. By her irresponsible actions she created a threat to Professor McGonagall’s life. It would appear the Gryffindorians have taken a dislike to their Head for some reason; however, that’s their business. So, as Granger is potentially dangerous, I’ll keep an eye on her personally. I will expect you tonight. At eight,” he said to Hermione.

The girl leaned against the wall with a doomed expression. Even Umbridge was comforted by her reaction.

“Very good,” she cooed, not taking her eyes off the girl, and smiled, which made even the Dark Mark’s grin look kinder. “I hope, Headmaster, you will find proper use for this Mudblood, and we will never hear from her again. Anything bad.”

“Don’t worry, Madam Umbridge, I’ll take her under. My. Personal. Responsibility,” saying these words, Snape penetrated Hermione with such a contemptuous, full-of-pure-rabies look that the girl understood – right now he was absolutely furious, and before they had only seen the half of it. Suddenly she felt like getting back to Carrow, but it was too late.

“Granger – one, two, three – and sold,” hissed one of Slytherins.

The First Deputy briskly adjusted her lace.

“All right, isn’t it time to conduct the initial assessment? In essence, except in certain individual cases involving unclean blood…” another attempt to strangle Hermione with a glance was interrupted by a single deafening clap. Searching for the source, everyone began looking around, and suddenly flashes of red and gold danced in the classroom which, due to the gloomy rain, had been submerged in the twilight. A huge lancet window, replacing the back wall, flared from the fiery, Gryffindor-coloured letters that were inscribed by someone's hand right in the cloudy sky.

**_“Slytherins… and… other… freaks… yesterday’s… fight… was… just… the beginning… You… can… tell… that… to… your… fathers… to… their… master… and… his… ministerial… lickspittles… We… will… continue… to… win…”_ **

The words appeared one by one, mirroring on the faces of the wizards watching this creative salute. Ron surreptitiously pulled Hermione to the middle of the group of Gryffindors; Harry, still very pale, took her by the arm tightly.

“Wowza! I bet that’s the sixth years…” Ron whispered to his friends, admiring the inscription. It certainly made a deep impression – everyone froze and read.

Sneaking a peak at Umbridge, Harry realised that, as he expected, the message had clearly affected her – the sweetest of smiles had already ripened on the First Deputy’s lips.

Sneaking a peak at the Headmaster, Harry realised why Severus Snape was considered the right hand of the Dark Lord. The pale face of the professor, lit up by the fiery flashes dancing on it, looked inhumanly fierce.

The three Death Eaters stepped closer to the Headmaster; Yaxley quietly expressed some seemingly mutual thought. Snape nodded, continuing reading and boiling with rage. Slytherins, both guilty and neutral, huddled together near the Headmaster and their Head, as a matter of precaution. McGonagall, surrounded by Gryffindors, hugged Hermione, and all of them watched in silence as the last letters melted into the rain one after another.

Then the paralysing spell subsided and everyone woke up, but only Umbridge spoke.

“That’s how the most serious problem emerges from individual cases, my friends,” she sighed with a sad smile. “Who do you believe is responsible for this, Headmaster?”

“Gryffindor,” Snape spat the word with the same contempt with which he had recently directed it against McGonagall.

Is the name of the House now deemed to be an expletive?

First Deputy Umbridge shook her head ruefully.

“Such a clear demonstration of disrespect to the Ministry of Magic should be severely punished. Don’t you think so, Headmaster?”

Snape vindictively narrowed his eyes at the rain beyond the window.

“Indubitably.”

“Apparently, the Ministry will have to take this under its own special control. It is unlikely that the school is capable of suppressing a riot on its own. This is the riot, isn’t it?”

Slytherins and the Death Eaters actively supported this sound thought. First Deputy Umbridge adjusted the locket on her chest with her plump hands.

“In the near future we will develop clear directives and send them to Hogwarts,” she promised feelingly. “Don’t worry about it, Headmaster; you will only have to ensure that they are strictly implemented.”

“I will,” Snape retorted through clenched teeth. “And I will coordinate them with… highest authority. And now I suggest the inspectors go to my office for a detailed discussion of… directives.”

The students quickly parted, opening a path for the inspectors and the teachers accompanying them, – Slytherins in one direction, the Gryffindors in the other. Leaving the room, Umbridge waved good-bye; her retinue followed her, discussing something with Carrow. The Headmaster, sweeping the white marble with his black robe, eagerly tailed the procession. The inspectors were just out of sight, and Snape had already reached his hand out to hold the door and exit when the second clap came. Everyone shuddered and automatically turned to the window.

**_“We… notify… the greasy-haired… bastard… Snape… that… he… won’t… live… to… see… our… victory…”_ **

Several voices screamed at once:

“Duck!”

The professor turned around with Death Eater agility, his hand, covered with a black glove, made a lightning lunge with his magic wand. The spell – devil knows which one – swept over the students’ heads and, with a ring, smashed the glass – not into splinters, but into the smallest dust. In a couple of seconds the spell reached the fire letters, turning them into sparkling pollen, which formed a vortex and was drawn into the Dark Mark. Those who first lifted their heads could still see the tail of the black robe that leapt up in the doorway. The icy rain bewitched by Voldemort spattered in through the empty window frame. A couple of girls sobbed hysterically. Professor McGonagall lowered the wand clenched in her trembling hand, removing the protective charms that she had hastily covered the students with, and, pale as a sheet, sat back in her chair.

“Merlin’s pants… what kind of crap was that?” Ron muttered, getting to his feet. “‘Sectumsempra Maxima’? Our good old school genius just shoots outright… Neville? Don’t scare me like this, mate. Did he get you?”

“Who?” Harry raised his wan face, still sitting on the floor. Ronald was taken aback.

“Snape… he just fired at us all with something unforgivable. Or rather unimaginable…”

“Sorry, I didn’t see…”

Ronald wanted to express his surprise once again, but his words were drowned out by the rumpus coming from all sides.

“So this is just the beginning? Well, it will be the end of you!”

“That’s all because of you, freaks. Get lost to your slimehole.”

“Want to see my father? Easy! I’ll call him!”

“Yeah, call him. We’ll beat the hell out of both of you!”

“How? You’re pussies!”

“Shut it, slither creeps!”

“Let’s get out of here,” Ron whispered to his friend wisely. “Or you might not make it to the fight with You-Know-Who. Besides, we still have lots of stuff to find.”

Harry nodded and stood up, holding his abdomen.

“What’s the matter? Stomachache?”

“I’ll… tell… you… later. Quickly… let’s go…” Harry’s misted eyes searched for Hermione, but she was far away, by the armchair in which an exhausted Minerva sat.

The students, forming two lines, drew out their wands and aimed them at each other. A new conflict of Gryffindor versus Slytherin was brewing.

“I think, I will need to speak to the Headmaster after all,” Professor McGonagall said without raising her voice.

Everyone paused and turned to her.

“Despite having an acute shortage of teachers at this moment, we’re going to have to divide you into two groups. It is next to impossible to teach in such an atmosphere… Now collect your belongings and go. You have five minutes to your next lesson, and I need to clean this classroom and to lock it up.”

The Gryffindors and the Slytherins exchanged glances and slowly lowered their wands; however, an intense mutual aversion could still been seen in their eyes.

“Don’t divide us, Professor McGonagall,” Dean Thomas said after a while. “We’ll watch them.”

“It’s us who will be watching you!” Zabini hissed. Fortunately, the Slytherin Head Boy wasn’t present at the discussion of this issue.

“Until the next breach of discipline,” McGonagall snapped, rising from her chair. “Special thanks to all of you for understanding this difficult situation that the school and its teaching staff are having at this point. I’m certain that the ministerial inspectors had the most favourable impression of what you have managed to learn at Hogwarts up to your last year: your magical knowledge, diligence, respect for your teachers and for each other.  I have no doubt that at the first opportunity the Headmaster will join me in similar words of gratitude. The class is dismissed; your homework is on the board.”

The blackboard was the only item that had remained in its place.

Students began to disperse, picking up their wet, class-scattered textbooks.

“Wow, there’s a lot of water in here…”

“Filch would make squibs out of us for doing that…”

“Has anybody seen my wand? Guys, please, what will I do without it?” Hannah Abbott lamented, meandering among the turned desks.

“…gets wet, burns up, gets wet, then burns up again,” Terry Booth grumbled mournfully, rolling up his endless scroll of parchment. “I’ve rewritten my homework for the fifth time already…”

“Sorry, Professor McGonagall,” Hermione sighed, walking away.

Dean, who was making his way to the exit behind her, stumbled and, trying not to look into Minerva’s eyes, muttered:

“Sorry, Professor.”

“Sorry, Professor…”

“Sorry, Professor…”

Even some of the Slytherins apologized.

Hermione’s friends stood by the door, waiting for her impatiently. Although the break was over, the corridor in front of the classroom was full of students with different coloured ties. Everyone wanted to know the details – about the inspection, about the inscriptions in the sky that had been seen by the whole of Hogwarts. Harry was paler than death.

“What took you so long?” Ron pulled the girl towards him. “Neville’s feeling bad.”

Hermione focused instantly.

“Scar?” she whispered.

“That as well, but I don’t care about it right now,” Harry answered in a voice full of suffering.

“Why are your hands bleeding?” the girl questioned, stunned. “Did it…”

“Not here…” ‘Neville’ pleaded, hiding his beaten, bloody hands in his pockets. “I… need to go to the bathroom. Urgently.”

“Let’s go then.”

Deciding not to go to Muggle Studies, they passed the excited crowd and ran towards the toilets. A ladies was closer this time. Scaring off a bunch of first-years, the Gryffindorian trio squeezed into a stall – it became more difficult to fit into one by the seventh year – and sealed the flimsy door with protective spells.

“Spit it out!” Hermione pleaded. The thought that the Chosen Boy might have just needed to go to the bathroom hadn’t occurred to her for even a minute. “I’ve almost lost my life today and got enslaved for the rest of it. Where is it? Did you understand? Did you get it?”

“Yeah, pull it out already,” Ron joined in, propping the enchanted door with his back. “Let’s take a look.”

“Just gimme a sec,” Harry moaned, rummaging under his sweater for a suspiciously long time.

“Do you want some help?” Hermione said impatiently.

“Nothing will help me anymore… this… Horcrux… tore me into pieces,” the young man finally pulled out an absolutely insane hamster, tightly holding it with both hands. The hamster was covered in Harry Potter’s blood from head to paws, and therefore looked even more bellicose.

“Galloping Gorgons!” exclaimed Ron. “Just an incarnation of evil!”

Hermione swallowed.

“Sparta’s feats are nothing compared to this! I take back my words about torments at Snape’s. How did you manage to get through it?”

“I had no choice,” Harry said in a weak voice, looking with hatred at the hamster, who was trying to escape his grip. “The main thing was to get this Horcrux, so I hid it under my shirt. I had barely enough time to transfigure a fake locket to give to Umbridge… Why didn’t I shove this bloody thing in McGonagall’s bosom? It’s a pity I had to push her away, but I couldn’t let her see what I was doing! Luckily I had the fake locket on me.”

“That’s not luck, Potter, that’s your destiny,” Hermione said seriously. “I am your luck. When did you idiots realise that the First Deputy was wearing our Horcrux?”

“It’s not ours, it’s You-Know-Who’s,” Harry corrected her. “I personally when you transfigured it into a hamster.”

“And I when the old toad began wailing ‘This is Slytherin’s locket!’” Ron beamed. “But we have you, Hermione!”

Hermione gave a hum of disapproval.

“I’m hungry,” she said after a while. “And thirsty. Let’s go back to the tower, since we are skipping the class anyway. I have some chocolate frogs in there – McGonagall gave them to me. Besides we need to heal Harry,” she shuddered, glancing at the self-sacrificing seeker’s T-shirt, front of which was torn into shreds.

“Let’s go,” Ronald agreed briskly. “There’s nobody there now, so we can figure out what to do with this thing,” he looked unkindly at the hamster, whose red eyes were twinkling.

The hamster returned the unkind look and bit Harry’s finger.


End file.
